


Cobain Continues Redux Press Clippings-Extended Edition

by Toxic34



Category: Real Person Fiction
Genre: Alternate History, Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-18
Updated: 2020-12-22
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:14:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 436,765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27083962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Toxic34/pseuds/Toxic34
Summary: An expanded version of Cobain Continues Redux-Press Clippings, now with more articles, interviews and further fleshing out of historical circumstances that have and haven't changed.
Kudos: 2





	1. 1985-2000

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Cobain Continues Redone-A Kurt Cobain Survives Timeline](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/717970) by TheGuyWhoHeartsHistory. 



_The following is a series of articles set in a world where Kurt Cobain doesn't commit suicide (he also never even tried heroin), and finds himself in a series of surprising developments in both his personal life and his career. For example, just to make things a bit clearer; Nirvana continues as a recording and touring act well into the 21st century, Kurt divorces Courtney and remarries, to actress Charlize Theron, and they also create a bold new venture together. This certainly also leads to a number of divergences in politics, sports, and popular culture, though of course, "the more things change, the more they stay the same." Some of these articles reflect things that also occurred IOTL, others have more divergences. For more information and context about what is being talked about here, see the AlternateHistory.com thread "Cobain Continues Redone: A Kurt Cobain Survives Timeline" (a link will be edited in later, because we are currently working on making a version with further re-edits, which includes moving the articles shown below and in the chapters to come from the story itself and linking instead to the relevant chapter there. I will link to that when it's ready) and the so called Springbok Wiki here: https://springbok.fandom.com/wiki/Springbok_Wiki. A bigger version of this article repository can be found at FictionPress: https://www.fictionpress.com/s/3352454/1/Cobain-Continues-Redux-Press-Clippings_

* * *

"The Walt Disney Company Changes Name of Distribution Arm," Internal memo, 1985

Effective today, The Walt Disney Company will change the name of its distribution arm from Buena Vista Theatrical Pictures to Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, to represent well and truly that Disney distributes and owns its own films. Furthermore, home video releases of all films prior to 1985 will have the message "Distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures" added to them, along with keeping distribution notes of "Distributed by RKO Radio Pictures" and "Distributed by Buena Vista" intact, adding the new addendeum only at the very end. Disney will keep the Buena Vista name for its home video division, under the umbrella of Buena Vista Home Video.

* * *

“Like the 3 Stooges: ZZZZ Best-How the Bubble Burst”, by Kim Murphy, _Los Angles Times_ , March 30, 1989

To look at them, nobody would have thought they could do it: An insurance adjuster who couldn’t seem to hold down a job. A family man who ran a small janitorial business. A former UCLA linebacker who taught himself accounting. And the kid with the big mouth and an overdose of charm.

But together they pulled off one of the biggest swindles in Southern California history, a $100-million con that convinced wealthy investors, a Big Eight accounting firm and Wall Street bankers that Barry Minkow’s ZZZZ Best carpet cleaning company was making a fortune repairing office buildings damaged by flood or fire.

Even today, after a 3 1/2-month trial that laid bare the charade, investigators are having a hard time figuring out how such a bunch of seeming ne’er-do-wells managed to pull it off. But then, so are the guys who did it.

Doctoring the Books

“It was literally like the Three Stooges, practically,” said Mark L. Morze, the former football player who stayed up nights with a small word processor and a bottle of White Out doctoring the books. “We used to just sit there and look at each other every day, saying, ‘I can’t believe it’s still going along, that people still believe this stuff.’ ”

By the time it was over, Minkow was found guilty of 57 counts of fraud and conspiracy, and 11 associates of the company he had vowed to turn into “the General Motors of the carpet cleaning industry” stood convicted of various fraud charges.

Minkow, scamming to the end, claimed throughout his trial that he had been manipulated by shadowy organized crime figures into carrying out the fraud.

But at his sentencing this week, when a federal judge handed down a 25-year prison term, the now-23-year-old Minkow admitted that the Mafia story was just that--another story. And the truth, it turned out, was even stranger: ZZZZ Best really was, all along, the tale of a kid who started a company in his parents’ garage, brought in some buddies from the gym, cut a few deals with reputed mobsters, dabbled in the netherworld of junk bonds and stock splits--and wound up with an empire worth $200 million on Wall Street.

An Unbelievable Script

“If you wrote a movie script with this cast of characters, no one would believe it,” said Assistant U.S. Attorney James Asperger, who tried the case with co-prosecutor Gordon Greenberg. “It was like the ‘Dirty Dozen,’ only they were out to commit evil.”

Although most of the ZZZZ Best principals still face civil suits filed by investors, stockholders and banks that were duped, the initial wave of criminal prosecutions concluded with Minkow’s sentencing on Monday.

As they prepared to go off to prison, three of Minkow’s top lieutenants spoke at length for the first time about how they pulled it off.

They admit that they deserve to be punished. All profess stinging regret for the people who got left holding the bag when the swindle collapsed. But there is in all of them still a hint of carefully shrouded pride about the entire mad, brazen, larcenous affair, an infectious enthusiasm that allows them to plunge into the story and get caught up in it again, and talk about how they came that close --four days away, they figure--to making ZZZZ Best a legitimate, multimillion-dollar corporation.

“If everything had worked out,” Morze said dreamily, “everyone makes out like a bandit. The stockholders make money, the income tax people collect taxes, three or four thousand people get jobs, America gets its carpets cleaned, the investment bankers get paid back, I become wealthy, Barry becomes wealthy, everybody makes out.”

Even Morze couldn’t resist the next line: “But noooo . . . .”

Minkow’s story, by now, everybody knows. How he started the business with a few rug shampooing machines and went on to publish his own book about becoming a teenage millionaire. How he started driving a $130,000 Ferrari, bought a mansion with a huge Z on the bottom of the swimming pool and hired fans, at $100 apiece, for the softball team he managed.

Less prominent have been the stories of the men he took with him to short-lived glory, the men, many of them approaching middle age, who suddenly saw the answer to their dreams in the visage of a wisecracking teenager.

Minkow was only 14 when Tom Padgett ran into him in a San Fernando Valley gym. Padgett was a Vietnam vet who could bench press more than 300 pounds, who didn’t want to hear from the kid who kept lurking around, nagging about how he wanted to train with him.

Padgett was 30 then and had a decent job as a claims adjuster with Allstate Insurance, but it was starting to get to him; his life wasn’t going anywhere. He took up boxing and, by his third fight, got hammered so badly he had to wear dark glasses the next day.

‘You Forget to Duck?’

“Everyone at the gym is getting a big charge out of it,” he recalled. “They’re saying, ‘What’s the matter, punchy? You forget to duck?’”

The Minkow kid told them all to shut up. “At least Tom had the guts to go in the ring, and that’s more than you guys,” Padgett recalled him saying. “It shut everyone up--and it really drew me to him.”

They got to hanging around in the Valley, and when Minkow, at 15, decided he wanted to start a carpet cleaning company, he got $1500 from one of the weightlifters and another $4500 from Padgett, who took out a loan for him.

It wasn’t a bad idea. Minkow had learned telephone sales from working with his mother, and soon ZZZZ Best’s vans were parking in front of houses around Los Angeles, promising to clean two rooms for $39.95--without extra charges.

Having Padgett at Allstate was a big boost for the fledgling carpet company. Padgett was able to steer an occasional insurance job ZZZZ Best’s way, contracts to repair homeowners’ floors after the bathroom flooded or someone dropped a burning frying pan in the kitchen.

But Minkow was having money troubles even from the start, trouble paying back the money he had borrowed to get the company going. Padgett got a notice from the bank that Minkow had missed several payments on the loan Padgett had obtained. Then, his bosses at Allstate called him in and asked him about someone named Minkow who apparently had stolen and cashed some Allstate warrants--similar to blank checks--after finding them in Padgett’s car.

When Allstate found out they were friends, and that Padgett had been referring jobs to Minkow, he was out of a job.

Things started looking up a few weeks later, though, when Padgett got hired as an auto appraiser at The Travelers insurance company.

He only had to go out on four jobs a day, leaving plenty of time to make it home by noon to watch _Twilight Zone_ reruns. He met his best friend’s cousin, Debbie, and fell in love. He might have cut Minkow off, what with the problems the teenager caused, but he was looking for ways to make Debbie notice him, and Minkow told him, “You want that girl, you got to get the money.” Minkow, as always, had a way.

Minkow told Padgett he was taking on some larger insurance restoration jobs on the side, fixing up whole buildings that had been burned or flooded. But to keep his bankers happy, he needed to show that he wasn’t getting all his work from one place. Could Padgett borrow some stationery from Travelers, “just for our internal books,” to make it look like Padgett was sending him some of the jobs?

Began to Suspect

Padgett agreed, even though he began to suspect that Minkow did not have as many restoration jobs as he claimed--that maybe some of the jobs he made up. It worked for a while, until one loan officer dropped by Travelers to ask about a supposed deal, ran into Padgett’s boss and found out that he was not a big-time broker handing out building repair contracts, but an appraiser checking out bent fenders.

Padgett was out of a job again. But at least no one had called the cops.

Not to worry anyway, Minkow said. He would set up Padgett in his own insurance appraisal business. He could hire Debbie as his secretary. And maybe, Minkow said, Padgett could refer ZZZZ Best some work.

The idea was to find legitimate jobs, of course. But in the meantime Padgett would earn most of his keep posing as the wealthy, successful president of Interstate Appraisal Services who was supposedly responsible for sending ZZZZ Best contracts that kept getting larger and larger--contracts that Minkow knew, and Padgett knew, didn’t exist.

The phantom jobs paid off indirectly. They were listed as revenue on ZZZZ Best’s books, which then could be shown to banks or individual investors to encourage them to lend the company money--money that could be used not only to pay the salaries of Minkow and his friends, but also fuel expansion of the company’s legitimate business, the part where ZZZZ Best workers actually went out and cleaned carpets.

That enterprise was taking off. Over the years, the garage turned into five locations, then 21 offices in three states, employing more than 1000 people.

Enter Jack Polevoi. A self-employed businessman, he suddenly found himself at the helm of ZZZZ Best’s carpet cleaning operation as it was reaching its peak.

Polevoi, 41, hadn’t really needed a job. The sale of his commercial maintenance business gave him enough to live on and build a luxurious house near Minkow’s in Westchester County Estates, a new gated community of mansions in Woodland Hills. Nevertheless, Polevoi was impressed with the kind of money being thrown around by this neighbor of his. And when ZZZZ Best commercials blitzed the airwaves--featuring Minkow promising clean carpets and no hidden charges--it was a kick to have such a celebrity around.

“You know, I was proud to introduce him to my friends. . . . He was a star, and a lot of people stopped me and asked, ‘Hey, what’s it like to have Barry Minkow as a friend?’"

So when Minkow told him he needed him to get the carpet cleaning operations in shape, Polevoi agreed. He brought in his brother, Jerry, to help.

“After the first week I was there, I got caught up in it. It was a great company! I mean, something I’d never seen in my life. Charisma. Everybody couldn’t wait to go to work. But after I was there a week, I went into Barry’s office, and I said, ‘Barry, I been in this business a long time, you’re not making any money.’ I said, ‘You got an overload of people, there’s no accountability, the place is like Disneyland here.’”

Managers at outlying offices were hiring limousines on a whim, Polevoi recalled. “The Coke machine in the corporate office, all you had to do was push a button and soda came out.”

Polevoi started cleaning house, firing the guys who were sitting around the offices and spending money, setting up interviews to land big corporate carpet cleaning accounts. But even when he landed major contracts to clean hotel carpets, Minkow didn’t seem to care.

“I flew back to Phoenix and met the guy (from) the Ramada Inn. He came back with me and closed the deal. We got the Marriott. . . . It just never impressed him. I said, ‘This is a national operation.’ He said, ‘OK, just do your job, Jack.’ ”

Polevoi was the only man Minkow seemed to trust with his own money, and he stashed thousands of dollars of pocket money for the boss in his desk drawer. When Minkow’s girls’ softball team had its championship games, the money to hire a cheering section came from there. When Minkow wanted money to buy a Mercedes for his girlfriend when she caught him in bed with another woman, Polevoi went to the drawer.

They Act as Waiters

Minkow was having a new girl over for a candlelight dinner. Would Polevoi and his brother dress up in tuxedos and act as waiters? Jack didn’t know where to put the forks and spoons, so he called his wife over to help.

“I became so involved, so obsessed with this whole thing, I wasn’t me anymore. I was someone else. I was obsessed with Barry. Barry would come over and say he wanted to go away for the weekend, go out for dinner, I went. And left all my friends behind. Because they didn’t want to be with him anymore. My friends were all very successful guys, young, in their 30s, did well. But they were never up to Barry’s expectations, because Barry always made megadollars.”

Long before Minkow was earning megadollars, Mark Morze, the one-time linebacker, had his own bookkeeping business, preparing tax returns and profit-and-loss statements for dozens of small businesses. He tried opening his own enterprise--a health club at the Sherman Oaks Galleria--but it lost $80,000 the first year, and he was back looking for clients when a loan broker introduced him to Minkow.

Morze, then 35, went to work for ZZZZ Best in late 1985 as a part-time consultant, shopping around Southern California for bank loans to help boost the company’s expansion. In the early days, Minkow had turned mainly to private investors: an elderly lady who ran the cigarette concession at a Las Vegas hotel, the wife of singer Tony Orlando, even a reputed local crime figure who delivered $25,000 cash in a brown paper bag. Some of the loans were negotiated at outrageous rates of interest. Most trickled in only fast enough to pay off earlier loans.

To help qualify for major bank loans, Minkow produced more and more contracts for insurance restoration work, most of it forwarded to ZZZZ Best from a guy Morze did not know, Tom Padgett. Morze said he figured the jobs were legit.

As Morze tells it, he began to learn the truth in 1986, when Minkow showed him a document from Interstate Appraisal Services indicating that ZZZZ Best had just completed work on a $2-million project in San Diego. An even bigger job was under way in Arroyo Grande, a tiny beach community south of San Luis Obispo, Minkow told him. Now a company that had loaned ZZZZ Best several hundred thousand dollars wanted to see how it was progressing.

“‘Mark,’” Morze said Minkow confessed, “‘the San Diego job is such a success that I invented the Arroyo Grande job to buy time, until we get the money from the San Diego job.’” Would Morze drive to Arroyo Grande and photograph any building that could pass as a restoration site?

He found the only three-story building in town, lying on the ground to photograph it so it looked bigger. But the ploy didn’t work. The lending company had beaten Morze to Arroyo Grande and quickly learned that ZZZZ Best did not have any contracts there. By the time Morze got back, Minkow was immersed in a tense meeting with officers of the lending company, trying to talk his way out of it.

Morze compared Minkow’s protestations to a small boy trying to hide an elephant behind his back. “‘What elephant?’ he says.” The company was reassuring on one point, Morze said, the matter would not be reported to authorities. But they would make no more loans to ZZZZ Best, thank you.

That was when Minkow confessed to him that the Arroyo Grande job wasn’t the only one that was fake, Morze said. All of the restoration jobs were. But don’t worry, Minkow said.

By this time, Minkow had hooked up with a guy from Encino, Maurice Rind--a convicted stock swindler, it so happened, but also a man with a reputation as a financial wizard--who was helping him merge with a publicly held Utah shell corporation. The move would eventually allow the sale of ZZZZ Best stock to the public. The Wall Street firm of Rooney Pace Inc. agreed to underwrite a public offering, a bonanza that would net ZZZZ Best an initial $11.5 million--enough to pay off the loans that were by now breeding at an alarming rate, enough so they would not have to fake any more restoration jobs.

“We gotta last 60 days, and we’re set,” Morze recalled Minkow telling him. “Mark, all you gotta do, if anybody asks you about the restorations, you gotta just say, ‘Yeah, they’re real, and they’re making money, and they’re moving along.’ And I said, ‘OK, I’ll do it.’ That was my start as a co-conspirator.”

The 60 days stretched into four, then five months. New loans had to be obtained to carry the company through. New restoration jobs had to be invented to show enough revenue to qualify for the loans. Morze, whose earlier bookkeeping work involved only rudimentary accounting, had to learn new tricks.

“A lot of people think I’m the genius behind the throne that made it all happen,” he said. “But I’d never seen a balance sheet in my life. I didn’t know what one looked like. The accountants would say, ‘Mark, we’re going to need your worksheets.’ I had to go to an encyclopedia and look it up, I didn’t know what a worksheet was. Then they said we need a performance bond. I ran to the business library and looked it up.”

Morze jotted down notes on every insurance job ZZZZ Best supposedly did. He cut and pasted checks together--taking the name of a bank from one, a signature from another--then smoothed out the edges with blobs of White Out and a copying machine. “If you saw me at the end of the night making checks, I’d look in the mirror and I’d have little white dots all over me,” he said.

The finished copies made it look as though ZZZZ Best was paying carpet and lumber suppliers for restoration materials. He drew up phony invoices to coincide with the checks and drafted two years’ worth of detailed bank statements--which IRS investigators later described as nearly perfect--that made the checks add up.

A Hitch Develops

But just before the stock sale came through, there was a hitch. To everyone’s horror, Ernst & Whinney, the accounting firm hired to help with the underwriting, wanted to inspect ZZZZ Best’s latest restoration job--touted as a $7-million project in Sacramento to restore an office building damaged by a massive water leak.

For months, Minkow, Morze and Padgett had been able to keep investors and their accountants away from the supposed job sites by saying that the insurance companies involved--who were paying for the work--were worried about being sued if anyone was injured.

When one determined loan officer insisted on coming to Padgett’s office, he was at his desk, and by prearrangement, his phone was ringing off the hook.

“And so every two minutes, I’d say, well, the reason you can’t go to the job sites, like I explained to you before"- ring!- “Yeah, hi Jim. You at the Anaheim job site? Right, OK, are the plumbers there? Oh, they’re not there? Fire ‘em. OK, let me spell it out: F-I-R-E T-H-E-M. OK? Sign my name on it. Do I have to fire everyone and get ZZZZ Best there? Cause I’m going to do that. OK.” Then: “Anyway, the reason you can’t go to the job site is a couple months ago somebody broke a kneecap"-- ring! They bought the whole thing.”

Ernst & Whinney was more persistent. So Padgett and a colleague flew to Sacramento, found an office building where some construction work was under way, and set up a masquerade. They slipped $50 to the security guard so he would greet “Mr. Morze” when he showed up with some special guests that weekend. They took down contractors’ signs and replaced them with ZZZZ Best signs.

Morze flew up Saturday morning with an accountant from Ernst & Whinney and a lawyer from the prestigious law firm of Hughes, Hubbard & Reed. Padgett waited nervously in a nearby hotel room, at one point calling Minkow in Los Angeles.

“It’s like third down and we’re on the 25-yard line and there’s three seconds left on the clock,” Minkow told him. “We gotta kick a field goal. . . . It’s all come down to this.”’

The security guard gave Morze the appropriate greeting and Morze led the way to the elevator.

“I have never done a construction job in my life,” Morze recalled. “I don’t know anything about plumbing, I know nothing about electricity, I know nothing about carpeting. I’m sitting there going, ‘Please don’t ask me any questions. Please don’t ask me any questions.’

“And sure enough, these big experts that are here to sign off on a multimillion-dollar underwriting go, ‘Well, you guys seem to be doing a good job. Let’s go back to the airport and have a few beers.’ Back to the airport. On the airplane. Fly home. Call Barry. We did it!”

Later, the ZZZZ Best crew went to work again when the accounting firm demanded a tour of a supposed San Diego job site. This time, they actually signed a $2-million, seven-year lease to get a building and had a construction company work day and night to fix it up, putting in the last nail only hours before the inspectors arrived--for a 20-minute visit. Afterwards, Morze said, Minkow sat back at his desk and laughed: “We spent $100,000 a minute for that inspection.”

The public stock offering finally came through in December of 1986, bringing money that would allow them to pay off all the “hooks,” as Morze called the loans, and put a little bit in the bank to help the legitimate carpet cleaning business. No more phony insurance jobs. No more lies.

“But now,” Morze said, “Barry confesses to me how many hooks there really are. And out of the $11 million we got, the first day, $8 million went out immediately. I say, ‘You owed $8 million?’ He says, ‘Yeah.’ I’m sitting there, oh my God, we only got $3 million left.” And there were more loans coming due in January and February. At that point, Morze said, Minkow just looked at him. “It’s not enough,” he said.

Padgett was still desperately in love with Debbie, but she had taken up with another guy and didn’t want anything to do with him. He was driving himself crazy with jealousy. “Finally, I figure I’m going to kill this guy, I mean, there’s no question in my mind, I’m going to kill him, I mean, don’t even talk about it. And Barry’s going, ‘No, no, no, there’s other women.’” Padgett, the supposed source of insurance restoration jobs, took to drinking most of the day and going out at night with a gun, “just looking for trouble.” “Imagine,” he said gleefully, “how Barry’s losing sleep nights, imagine that, you know, here’s 86% of his business running around Santa Monica drunk at 3 in the morning with a loaded gun--three loaded guns, as a matter of fact.”

The crisis ended when Minkow reminded his friend about the waterfront house in Newport Beach that he had wanted ever since hearing Debbie describe her dream home. It seems that one of ZZZZ Best’s investors had such a place he wanted to sell. What if Minkow bought it and let Padgett live there?

“I said, ‘Barry, it can’t be, I mean, things like that don’t happen to me.’ He says, ‘No, we got this line of credit from First Interstate that will be a big help.’” All Padgett had to do was put on his $800 suit, his Rolex watch, and show up at the bank and convince loan officers that a new batch of insurance jobs were real.

By now, in the spring of 1987, what Morze calls the big “cure” was coming. Drexel Burnham Lambert was talking about underwriting a $40-million private placement of junk bonds with which ZZZZ Best could acquire KeyServ, a nationwide carpet cleaning chain that got its business through the country’s premier retailer-Sears Roebuck. With respected ties like that, they would never again have to fake any restoration jobs, Padgett and Morze figured.

They dreamed of making a success with KeyServ, then using $700 million in junk bonds to finance a hostile takeover of a $1.3-billion international corporation.

“It’s the only thing that keeps you going in your brain,” Morze said. “We get KeyServ, the world is ours. We get KeyServ, the world is ours.”

Padgett was comfortably ensconced in the oceanfront house in Newport Beach. With ZZZZ Best stock soaring, Minkow was launching discussions to buy the Seattle Mariners baseball team. Everything was on track.

Then two things happened. First, an article appeared in _The Times_ about some problems at ZZZZ Best a few years earlier, when dozens of customers had complained that large overcharges had been rung up on their credit cards. Minkow quickly threw the blame off on former employees, but the report sent shivers through Wall Street and the stock plummeted.

Then, Norman Rothberg, a thin, bespectacled accountant who rented office space from Interstate Appraisal, went to Ernst & Whinney and confided that the Sacramento restoration job was not real. Ernst & Whinney got on the phone to Minkow. Minkow quickly got Padgett on the phone. “You better figure out what the hell this man has done,” Minkow declared.

Rothberg was cornered in a meeting with Padgett and another ZZZZ Best associate, who he said began toying with a gun. After the meeting, he took $15,000 to go back to Ernst & Whinney and say he had made up the story.

Hire Investigators

But the damage was done. The accounting firm hired a team of investigators. Shortly thereafter, Ernst & Whinney and Drexel Burnham Lambert pulled out of the KeyServ deal. It had been only four days--at the most seven--away from closing.

Padgett was on the San Diego Freeway, on his way home to Newport Beach, when the phone rang in his Lincoln Town Car. Minkow needed to talk to him right away. More news stories would be running soon exposing the fraudulent insurance jobs, the boss said.

“He said, ‘Tom, it’s over.’ And he was so tired in his voice. You see, Barry never sounds tired. This time, he was so tired, he said, ‘It’s over, man, it’s all over.’ I said, ‘We got to fight on.’ He says, ‘We can’t fight on, they’ve been to Sacramento. They know there aren’t any building permits. They’ve been to San Diego. We’re finished. We’re caught.’”

Minkow told him he would have to move out of the Newport Beach house right away. “I said, ‘Barry, I’ve only been in there three months, I’ve waited all my life for a house like this.’ He said, ‘Tom, they’re coming, man, there’s gonna be all kinds of charges.’”

Padgett hung up and drove home. Debbie’s cousin was there. To surprise him, she had gone out and bought new bedroom furniture. The books were no longer stacked on the floor, they were neatly arranged in a new bookcase.

“She says, ‘You’ll never believe this, but Debbie called. She wants to come down this weekend,’” Padgett recalled. “And that’s the first time I cried.”

On July 2, 1987, Morze watched on the evening news as Barry Minkow’s attorney announced that the young entrepreneur had resigned from ZZZZ Best.

Their caper may have been over, but Morze had not come away empty handed. Investigators later estimated that he had made nearly as much as the $3 million they believed Minkow took out of the company--Morze admits only about $1 million in income on his tax return for 1987--and it enabled him to buy one new house for his parents, and help his girlfriend buy another.

But days before the end, Morze said, he had emptied his bank accounts and given his last cash to Minkow, who begged him for money to make the ZZZZ Best payroll. Now, on television, angry employees were complaining that they had not received their last paychecks.

“I guess I fell for Barry, too,” Morze concluded, “and I think it’s probably fitting punishment, and ironic, that I got cleaned out by the same guy that cleaned out everybody else.”

Trip to Las Vegas 

In those last frantic days, Polevoi and his brother were dispatched to Las Vegas with $700,000 Minkow scrounged up from corporate accounts. Minkow handed over a pile of cashiers’ checks and instructed them to gamble the checks at various casinos and come home with cash. Both Polevoi brothers wound up pleading guilty to money laundering charges for that escapade.

After it was all over, Padgett went into his office at Interstate Appraisal and found out that a major insurance company wanted to open a legitimate account with him. “That’s the second time I cried,” he said. “You can make an argument, maybe I deserve to go to jail, maybe I deserve 20 years, but I don’t think I deserved coming that close and getting knocked down.”

He got eight years in prison, the same as Morze. Polevoi is looking at 18 months. From having owned his dream house outright when he met Minkow, Polevoi now owes $1 million against it in taxes, stock losses and legal fees.

“What I was hoping through all of this is that the judge would understand how a guy like me got caught up,” Polevoi said. “I said, what I did was wrong, no question about it. I want to plead guilty. But have an open mind to what was going through my head.” Minkow, he said, “could’ve made a legitimate company out of ZZZZ Best.”

Morze agreed: “We tried it. It coulda worked. It shoulda worked.”

But it didn’t, and all of the would-be millionaires will be behind bars by mid-April. Minkow, unable to make bail, has already been in prison for nearly a year and a half. He has telephoned Polevoi occasionally to chat and report that it’s not all that bad inside.

“I’ll tell you exactly what he said,” Polevoi recounted. “He said, ‘If this is all they can do to you, it’s a piece of cake.’ They can’t torture him. They can’t electrocute him. I said to myself, ‘this guy is totally invincible.’”

* * *

"The Deal For MCA," by Geraldine Fabrikant, _The New York Times_ , November 27, 1990

MCA Inc., one of the nation's largest entertainment companies, agreed yesterday to be acquired by the Matsushita Electric Industrial Company. The deal, valued at $6.13 billion plus stock in a television station, will be the largest purchase ever of an American company by a Japanese company.

The purchase price is $66 a share in cash and shares in an MCA subsidiary that would own WWOR-TV, the New Jersey-based television station owned by MCA. Analysts yesterday valued the deal at about $69 a share, lower than the $75 or more a share that MCA's chairman, Lew R. Wasserman, had been led to believe he would receive when preliminary talks began in September, one person involved in the talks said.

MCA stock fell 25 cents yesterday, closing at $65.125, below the offer price, in part because the deal will not close until early 1991.

But MCA's board, meeting Sunday, was apparently resigned to the fact that the economy -- and the company's prospects -- had deteriorated since then, and that no rival bidder had emerged. The 77-year-old Mr. Wasserman said in an interview yesterday, "I feel satisfied or I wouldn't have recommended the deal to the board."

Some experts on corporate acquisitions said the Matsushita-MCA deal may well be representative of deals in the early 1990s. They see more American companies being sold to foreigners, particularly the Japanese, for lack of an American bidder. And they expect prices well below what those companies might have sold for in the 1980s, in the view of Arthur Fleischer, the chairman of Fried Frank Harris Shriver & Jacobson, which represented a large MCA shareholder, David Geffen, in the transaction.

MCA, with 1989 sales of $3.38 billion, owns Universal Studios, Universal Pictures, MCA Records, theme parks and the G.P. Putnam's Sons publishing house, as well as a stake in the USA cable network. In addition to the divestiture of WWOR, the company's Yosemite National Park and Curry Company will be sold to an American buyer within a year under terms of the agreement.

Matsushita had revenues of $37.75 billion in the year ended March 31 and is best known for its consumer-electronics products sold under the Panasonic, Quasar and Technics names. But it controls an empire of 87 companies in Japan and many abroad, and its interests include computers, industrial equipment and semiconductors. Like its competitor, the Sony Corporation, which acquired Columbia Pictures, TriStar Pictures and CBS Music (incorporating several different labels, most notably Columbia Records), Matsushita is following the strategy that a manufacturer of "hardware" like high-definition television sets will not be competitive unless it also controls "software," like movies and recorded music, to play on that equipment.

MCA's president, Sidney J. Sheinberg, said yesterday that the company needed such a deal because "size denotes resources -- as you expand, you need more and more to compete."

Critics of the sale feared growing Japanese cultural influence through motion pictures and television programs and loss of American control of an important industry, which is an export powerhouse for the United States. J. Richard Iverson, president of the American Electronics Association, said foreign investors were "picking up everything from womb to tomb in the communications field." He added, "If you control the production of material, the display of material and the manufacturing of equipment, you have a significant advantage in the future information age."

Supporters argued that the sale would bring additional financial resources to MCA, and viewed the acquisition as a sign of America's economic health and an increasingly integrated global economy.

Prof. Henry R. Nau, associate dean of the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University, said: "If it makes sense as a business deal, it's something we should accept. Japanese and American markets are increasingly integrated, and we shouldn't assume that any acquisition is contrary to our interests."

The MCA-Matsushita deal capped days of tense negotiations during which talks collapsed over a $2-a-share difference in price and then resumed again on Thanksgiving afternoon when the offer was increased by the $2. After a 13 1/2-hour meeting on Sunday, the MCA board unanimously approved the offer. Price was not an issue at the meeting, one person involved in the talks said. The deal was announced yesterday once the final details were in place but it ran into additional tensions on Friday night and Sunday night.

Nevertheless it took on a momentum of its own. It seemed unlikely that MCA would attract another buyer at a comparable price over the next several years at least, particularly from an American bidder.

Felix Rohatyn, the partner at Lazard Freres & Company, the investment banking firm, told the MCA board during the Sunday meeting that only a handful of companies in the world would be able to write a $6 billion check for MCA.

Mr. Wasserman and Mr. Sheinberg first met with the Matsushita representatives Masahiko Hirata, a specialist in finance, and Keiya Toyonago, a senior managing director, in Los Angeles last month.

Before beginning the talks in New York that began last week, Michel Ovitz, the head the Creative Artists Agency, a talent agency, who brought the companies together, had indicated to Mr. Wasserman that Matsushita would be willing to pay about $75 a share, said two people who were involved in the negotiations. Mr. Ovitz did not return phone calls yesterday. As a result, when the meetings began last Monday and Matsushita offered $60 in cash, Mr. Wasserman said he would not even discuss the offer and made no conteroffer, several people involved in the talks said. One person said some MCA executives wonder whether Mr. Ovitz really did get the $75 figure from Matsushita. 

By late Tuesday Matsushita had improved its offer to $64 in cash. Mr. Wasserman, one executive involved in the deal said, asked for a better bid.

By Wednesday, Matsushita informed MCA that $64 in cash was the last and best bid. "We told them we would schedule a board meeting and not recommend the deal," said one person close to MCA. The MCA board was scheduled for a telephone meeting about the price on Thursday.

That evening Mr. Wasserman had dinner with Robert Strauss, a former chairman of the Democratic National Committee and a former United States trade representative, who acted as a go-between. The MCA chairman is said to have indicated that if the Japanese raised their bid by $2 a share, he would recommend it to his board.

About 6:00 Thanksgiving morning, Mr. Strauss called Herbert A. Allen, the investment banker from Allen & Company who was advising Matsushita, to suggest that MCA might accept a $66 cash offer. Mr. Ovitz had gone back to Los Angeles, but was involved by telephone.

Sometime Thursday morning, the pair persuaded Matsushita to raise its price to $66 in cash. One person involved in the talks said Mr. Ovitz had argued that this was a make-or-break issue and that they had to give a little. When they made the offer to Mr. Wasserman that afternoon, he indicated that he would recommend the deal to the board.

But the end was hardly in sight. Mr. Sheinberg, who was staying at his apartment at Trump Tower with his wife, Lorraine, canceled plans to go to the home of the producer-director Steven Spielberg, in East Hampton, Long Island, for Thanksgiving dinner, instead dining at the Four Seasons restaurant in Manhattan.

Throughout the weekend teams of lawyers struggled with the contracts and a number of other issues that made talks extremely tense at several points. But at least two people involved in the talks said that after the price had been settled, they basically expected the deal to close.

One person involved in the talks said one element that was crucial to MCA was that the deal be as airtight as possible so that in the 30 or 40 days until it was completed, Matsushita could not back out. Matsushita, for its part, wanted to assure itself that major MCA shareholders like David Geffen, who owns 10 million shares of the company's 93 million shares, could not tender to another party.

Matsushita sought lockup agreements from such shareholders so that they would agree to tender their shares to Matsushita so long as Matsushita's bid remained outstanding.

Additionally the Japanese company was concerned about signing long-term deals with top management. One person said Matsushita was very worried about what happened at Sony. After Sony acquired CBS Music, friction with its management led to the departure of CBS Music's chairman, Walter Yetnikoff. Sony has found it necessary to put in a new management team and take a much more active role in the running of the company. "Matsushita did not want that to happen," this person said.

Mr. Wasserman made a special arrangement for the sale of his stock. He owns roughly five million shares of MCA stock. But instead of selling for cash, he will receive preferred stock of a wholly owned subsidiary of Matsushita that has been organized for the acquisition. The structure of his preferred stock agreement also became an extremely tense issue.

When the board met Sunday, "there was some disappointment about the price," according to one board member who declined to be named. Mr. Rohatyn, in a presentation to the board, argued that if one used the yardstick of other deals, like Time Inc.'s merger with Warner Communications or Sony's purchase of Columbia, this offer was in the best interest of the shareholders.

But some points still remained unresolved as late as yesterday morning.

As part of its efforts to secure the transaction, Matsushita received an option to acquire 16.9 million shares at $71. The effect of the option is to increase the purchase price should a rival bidder emerge. Under the agreement, Matsushita would receive $125 million should MCA accept a higher offer from another party.

Despite the fact that the deal is complete, MCA was still extremely sensitive to possible criticism that it was selling out to the Japanese, who might attempt to make creative decisions. Mr. Sheinberg said: "We impressed upon our clients the fact that our businesses would continue to be run in the fashion they had been run. The idea that the Japanese interfere in making movies and writing books is borderline silly."

Nevertheless, one person close to MCA acknowledged that the thought of Japanese owning two American movie companies is disturbing. And the cultural difference surfaced even at Sunday's board meeting, albeit as a joking matter. Matsushita has a 250-year business plan, one board member said. "Lew told them he has his own 500-year business plan."

The reaction to the deal was varied and strong. Alfred Sikes, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, said yesterday that the MCA deal would probably improve the chances that the agency would eliminate regulations that prohibit American television networks from buying Hollywood studios or vice versa.

Current regulations prohibit the television networks from owning an interest in the shows they buy from Hollywood. They also prohibit the networks from syndicating television programs both in the United States and abroad. Representative John D. Dingell, chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, has announced hearings on regulations, which prevented the sale of MCA to General Electric, which owns NBC.

If the rules are eased to permit such mergers, industry executives think The Walt Disney Company would seriously consider an offer for one of the networks, probably CBS. Paramount Communications has long been rumored to have some interest in a merger with Capital Cities/ABC. NBC, which is owned by the General Electric Company, has also shown some interest in being able to acquire or merge with a studio.

Federal regulations also prohibit foreign entities from owning American television stations, thus requiring the spinoff of WWOR.

* * *

"Wall Street Mystery Features a Big Board Rival," by Randall Smith, _The Wall Street Journal_ , December 16, 1992

Here's a tantalizing Wall Street mystery.

The Securities and Exchange Commission recently cracked down on one of the largest-ever sales of unregistered securities. Investors had poured $440 million into investment pools raised by two Florida accountants, who for more than a decade took in money without telling the SEC or making required financial disclosures to investors. The pair had promised investors hard-to-believe annual returns of 13.5-20%, to be obtained by turning the money over to be managed by an unnamed broker.

Regulators feared it might all just be a huge scam. "We went into this, thinking it could be a major catastrophe," says Richard Walker, the SEC's New York regional administrator. But when a court-appointed trustee went in, the money was all there. Indeed, the mystery money manger was beating the promised returns by such a wide margin that the two accountants ditched their their accounting business in 1984 to concentrate on their more lucrative investing sideline.

Who was the broker with the Midas touch? The SEC, which last month went to court to shut down the operation, won't say. Neither will the lawyer for the two accountants, Frank J. Avellino and Michael S. Bienes of Fort Lauderdale.

But the mystery broker turns out to be none other than Bernard L. Madoff-a highly successful and controversial figure on Wall Street, but until now, not known as an ace money manager.

Mr. Madoff is one of the masters of the off-exchange "third market" and the bane of the New York Stock Exchange. He has built a highly profitable securities firm, Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities, which siphons a huge volume of stock trades away from the Big Board. The $740 million average daily volume of trades executed electronically by the Madoff firm off the exchange equals 9% of the NYSE's. Mr. Madoff's firm can execute trades so quickly and cheaply that it actually pays other brokerage firms a penny a share to execute their customers' orders, profiting from the spread between bid and asked prices that most stocks trade for.

In an interview, the 54-year-old Mr. Madoff says that he didn't know that the money he was managing had been raised illegally. And he insists the returns were really nothing special, given that the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index generated an average annual return of 16.3% between November 1982 and November 1992. "I would be surprised if anyone thought that matching the S&P over 10 years was anything outstanding." In fact, most investors would have been delighted to be promised such returns in advance, as the accountants' investors were. That's especially true since the majority of money managers actually trailed the S&P 500 during the 1980s.

The best evidence that the returns were very attractive: the size of the pools mushroomed by word of mouth, without any big marketing effort by the Avellino & Bienes partnership. The number of investors eventually grew to 3200 in nine accounts with the Madoff firm. "They took in nealy half a billion dollars in customer money totally outside the system that we can monitor and regulate," says the SEC's Mr. Walker. "That's pretty frightening."

An SEC civil complaint filed in New York federal court November 17 charged that Messrs. Avellino and Bienes "have operated A&B as an unregistered investment company and have engaged in the unlawful sale of unregistered securities," and ordered the money returned to investors by a court-appointed trustee, New York attorney Lee Richards. The two 56-year-old accountants declined to comment. Their attorney, Ira Lee Sorkin, says that they didn't know that the notes that they had issued to their clients should've been registered with the SEC, and he says that investors have got their money back and haven't complained. If the notes had been registered, they would have had to include a description of how their money was being invested, and by whom. In addition, Avellino & Bienes would have had to send investors annual reports and financial statements.

But how did Mr. Madoff rack up his big investment returns? Early investors in the late 1970s were told-and Mr. Madoff confirms-that their money was being used to engage in so-called convertible arbitrage in securities of such companies as Occidental Petroleum Corp., Limited Stores Inc. and Continental Corp. Promised annual returns in this period, one investor said, were 18-20%. In such a strategy, an investor buys a company's preferred stock or bonds that pay high dividends and are convertible into the company's common stock; the investor simultaneously sells borrowed common stock of the same company in a "short sale" to hedge against a stock price decline. The investor earns the spread between the higher dividend paid on the convertible securities and the lower dividend on the common stock, plus interest from investing the proceeds of the stock short sale. Using borrowed money, or leverage, to magnify returns, an investor can reap double-digit returns. But the strategy carries big risk if interest rates raise and stock prices go down.

Mr. Madoff said his investment strategy changed around 1982, when his firm began using a greater variety of strategies tied to the stock market, including the use of stock-index futures and "market-neutral" arbitrage, which can involve buying and selling different stocks in an industry group. 

Mr. Madoff said, "The basic strategy was to be long a broad-based portfolio of S&P securities and hedged with derivatives," such as futures and options. Such a strategy, he said, allowed the investors "to participate in an upward market move while having limited downside risk." For example, he said, the Madoff firm made money when the stock market crashed in 1987 by owning stock market index puts, which rose in value as the market declined. 

In the mid-1980s, one investor says, the limited reports that Avellino & Bienes sent to investors changed, and investors stopped being told in which securities their money was invested. The interest rate on some new notes sold by the accountants was also lowered to 16% or less. One investor who complained about the vaguer reports and lower returns was told that if he didn't like them, he could withdraw his investment. He chose to remain.

Perhaps the biggest question is how the investment pools could promise to pay such high interest rates on a steady annual basis, even though annual returns on stock fluctuate drastically. In 1984 and 1991, for example, the stock market delivered a negative return, even after counting dividends. Yet Avellino & Bienes-and Mr. Madoff-maintained their double-digit returns.

The answer could be that Mr. Madoff's use of futures and options helped cushion the returns against the market's ups and downs. Mr. Madoff says that he made up for the cost of the hedges-which could have caused him to trail the stock market's returns-with stock-picking and market timing.

Certainly, the investment pools' returns were less astounding by the standards of the early 1980s, when short-term interest rates briefly topped 20%. But the annual returns on Treasury bills hit a peak of 14.7% percent in 1981, and remained under 12% in the three other years that bills had double-digit returns, 1979-82, before falling later in the '80s.

One person familiar with the Avellino & Bienes case speculated that having the assets of the investment pools under management may have helped Mr. Madoff's firm by giving him an inventory of securities that could help him to execute other trades for his firm. Not true, said Mr. Madoff. "One thing has nothing to do with another."

As the investment pools swelled, two other accountants, Steven Mendelow of New York City and Edward Glantz of Lake Worth, Florida, started their own pool, Telfran Ltd., to invest in Avellino & Bienes notes. Telfran by itself sold $89.6 million in unregistered notes, a separate SEC civil lawsuit charges. The two men, also represented by Mr. Sorkin, declined to comment. The SEC said Telfran made money by investing in Avellino & Bienes notes paying 15-19% annually, while paying Telfran investors lower rates.

All the while, Mr. Madoff was scoring investment returns that comfortably exceeded the hefty returns Avellino & Bienes was promising its noteholders. That excess return generated big profits for the two accountants, the SEC suit indicates. The SEC has asked those profits be returned as "unjust enrichment," a demand Mr. Sorkin calls "totally unwarranted." For his part, Mr. Madoff says he charged the investment pools only what he described as standard brokerage commissions. He termed turnover in the accounts "not very active", almost nil in some years.

* * *

"Disney Snaps Up Miramax For Estimated $60 Million, Independent Company Gained Fame With _The Crying Game_ , Weinstein Brothers to Retain Control," by James Bates, _Los Angeles Times_ , May 1, 1993

The two brothers behind the quirky hit film _The Crying Game_ can now cry all the way to the bank.

Miramax Films, which gained international attention this year with its Oscar-nominated thriller that mixes sexual intrigue with Irish terrorism, is being bought by The Walt Disney Company in a deal that marries Hollywood’s most successful studio with its leading independent distributor.

Although no terms were disclosed in Friday’s announcement, analysts and Hollywood executives estimated that Disney will pay close to $60 million for Miramax and its library of more than 200 films, with some of the payments contingent on Miramax’s performance.

Disney also has agreed to give brothers Harvey and Bob Weinstein, Miramax’s co-chairmen, the kind of autonomy the tightly run company rarely granted until recently.

For Disney, the deal means access to the kind of prestige films it has had trouble producing on its own. But it may also push the boundaries of Disney’s wholesome image because some of Miramax’s biggest hits, such as Madonna’s _Truth or Dare_ , have centered on steamy adult sexuality.

On a broader scale, the Miramax acquisition underscores the rising stature of independent film companies and the recognition that critically acclaimed “art house” films can also be major box office successes.

Miramax’s low-budget _The Crying Game_ has grossed nearly $60 million, which is unheard of for a small, independent film. In addition, all but one of the films nominated for best picture at this year’s Oscars came from the independents’ ranks.

The Miramax acquisition, made through Disney’s distribution arm Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, is unusual for Disney, which in the past has launched film ventures from the ground up. The 15 to 20 films a year Miramax releases will boost and broaden Disney’s box office reach, with speculation that the company may soon be distributing 40 to 50 films a year--about twice the major studio average.

One question raised is whether the Weinsteins will fit into a company that likes to call itself “Team Disney.” In the past, the Weinsteins have clashed with filmmakers and developed a reputation for sometimes running roughshod over small filmmakers and employees. The brothers have been working to repair their reputation.

Walt Disney Studios Chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg predicted that things will go smoothly.

“They have had to live from hand to mouth as any independent has had to,” he said. “As the marketplace has become more and more difficult and the risks become greater and greater financially, giving them the financial resources ensures that they will continue to be the best, most successful independent film company in the world.”

Acquiring Miramax is one of several moves Disney has made recently to add to its product line the kind of art house films that often have trouble finding an audience because major studios shun them. In addition to the Miramax deal, Disney recently agreed to distribute movies made by filmmakers James Ivory and Ismail Merchant, whose work includes the critical hits _A Room With a View_ and _Howards End._

Miramax will remain in New York, operating as a separate company under the management of the Weinstein brothers, who have been given five-year contracts.

Executives from Miramax and Disney emphasized that Miramax will operate as it has in the past, using the same marketing and distribution apparatus but backed by Disney’s huge resources.

“This company is named Miramax. It is a standalone, independent and autonomously run company,” Katzenberg said.

Miramax had been rumored to be an acquisition candidate for a couple of years, although Disney and Paramount Studios only recently came into the picture as the most likely buyers. Independent film companies frequently need to seek partners or sell stock to the public because they tend to be chronically short of cash.

But Harvey Weinstein denied that the company needed to find a buyer. “We were in the unique financial position of not having to do anything. This company has been successful in 11 out of the last 12 years,” he said.

Katzenberg said: “This deal was never shopped to us. It wasn’t in any way, shape or form put up for auction. We approached them.”

As a private company, Miramax does not release financial figures. But in March, the Weinsteins told _The Times_ that preliminary figures showed Miramax in 1992--before _The Crying Game_ took off--would earn $4.7 million on revenue of about $75 million.

Founded 14 years ago, Miramax was named after the Weinsteins’ parents, Miriam and Max. Known as shrewd marketers, the brothers built the company on the success of such independent films as _Cinema Paradiso_ , _sex, lies and videotape_ , _The Crying Game_ and _Scandal_.

The duo has developed a reputation as two of the more colorful figures in film with a passion for movies and a lack of concern for such basic things as decorum. Indeed, neither brother wore a necktie to the news conference.

From a financial point of view, the Miramax acquisition represents a relatively small risk for Disney, which had about $7.5 billion in revenue the last fiscal year. “Even if they make a mistake, it’s not going to change Disney’s fate or direction,” said Merrill Lynch analyst Harold Vogel.

Disney is expected to keep the Miramax banner separate from the Disney name, much as it has done with its Touchstone Pictures and Hollywood Pictures units that release more adult-themed films.

Jeffrey Logsdon, an analyst with Seidler Amdec in Los Angeles, said that as a result, Disney’s image will not suffer if Miramax releases more explicit films because Disney has already broken the adult-theme barrier thanks to films like _Pretty Woman_ and _What's Love Got to Do With It_.

* * *

"Jeffrey Katzenberg, David Geffen and Steven Spielberg Start a Studio," by Benjamin Svetkey, _Entertainment Weekly_ , October 28, 1994  
  
 _Three's Company: A guide to all the Hollywood hullabaloo_  
  
Steven Spielberg‘s mama always said: If you’re going to start your own movie studio, do it with your friends — your rich friends. Apparently, Jeffrey Katzenberg‘s and David Geffen‘s moms offered similar advice. Last week, the three amigos shook the entertainment world by joining forces to create a potentially historic media conglomerate. But now that the hoopla over the news has settled, Hollywood is scratching its head in Gump-like confusion, wondering, will everyone get along like peas and carrots? Below, a guide to the biggest Hollywood marriage since Lyle and Julia.  
  
*What’s in it for them? For Katzenberg — who left Disney in a huff last month after chairman Michael Eisner nixed his requested promotion to the No. 2 spot — the new studio is a major psychological boost. If the venture works, it could transform Katzenberg, 43, into a bigger player than any of his former bosses (including former Paramount honcho Barry Diller). For Spielberg, 46, running a studio may be the only way to top himself after _Schindler’s List_ , the capper to what’s being widely hailed as the most successful directing career in Hollywood history. Meanwhile, Geffen, 51, is just looking for something to do. Since unloading Geffen Records to MCA Inc. for about $700 million in 1990, he’s been the most underemployed billionaire in showbiz. ”I haven’t had this much anxiety in 20 years,” he said at the Peninsula Hotel press conference on Oct. 12.  
  
*Are they serious about this? They certainly seem to be. They have ponied up a total of $250 million out of their personal fortunes for start-up expenses (although hundreds of millions more will be needed once the first picture rolls into production sometime in 1995). The investment is a particularly telling gesture from Spielberg, who in the past has vowed never to risk his own money on his own projects. Other signs they aren’t kidding: Last week they were seen shopping for office space in Santa Monica.  
  
*Can three titanic Hollywood egos run a business together — without driving each other crazy? Actually, these guys seem made for each other. Entertainment attorney David Colden predicts, ”Jeffrey is brilliant at organization, motivating, and empowering people — ultimately, he will be the corporate leader. Spielberg has evidenced a desire to remain creative and not get embroiled in running a company. And Geffen is the consummate signer — put Geffen in a room with someone and that individual will ultimately sign.”  
  
*What’s the deal with Matsushita? How does it fit into the picture? The Japanese giant, and parent company of the electronics division Panasonic, bought MCA Inc. — which is headed by chairman and CEO Lew Wasserman, 81, and president and COO Sid Sheinberg, 59-for more than $6 billion in 1991. Now Sheinberg and Wasserman, chafing under Matsushita’s fiscal restraint, may want to buy back controlling interest, and the new Katzenberg-Spielberg-Geffen troika gives them a big bargaining chip. Spielberg’s cozy relationship with Sheinberg (who gave Spielberg his big break directing a _Night Gallery_ episode) has pumped billions into Matsushita. ( _Jurassic Park_ alone earned nearly $1 billion at the box office.) If Matsushita refuses to sell even a portion of the company, Sheinberg and Wasserman could walk and take their ties to Spielberg & Co. with them. Some insiders speculate that the new studio is merely Spielberg’s bluff to help Sheinberg pressure Matsushita into selling. Others speculate that if Matsushita lets it go, Spielberg and the others will use MCA/Universal as the foundation for their studio. Still others suggest that there’s no link whatsoever. ”Just because MCA is having problems with its parent company, and Jeffrey, Steven, and David are starting a new company, the two are not necessarily connected,” cautions one high-ranking observer.

* * *

_"_ ABC Makes High-Profile Production Leap," by Steve McClellan, _Broadcasting & Cable_, December 5, 1994 **  
**  
The joint venture between Capital Cities/ABC and the new Hollywood studio backed by Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen represents ABC's single biggest production effort to date, according to Capcities/ABC President Robert Iger. Both parties have committed more than $100 million each to the seven-year venture, which will produce and distribute television shows for various media and dayparts for Capcities and non-Capcities distribution outlets. It will be based at the new SKG motion picture studio to be built by Spielberg, Katzenberg and Geffen in Los Angeles. The first shows could appear by mid-1995.

* * *

Interview with David Geffen, NBC-TV Los Angeles, February 21, 1995

Q: You've come a long way in the last 20 years. You started a fledgling record label, Asylum Records, at that time, you've made billions off musical acts like The Eagles, Whitesnake, Aerosmith, Guns N' Roses, Nirvana and Hole, and now you're partnering with Steven Spielberg and Jeffrey Katzenberg to run a new movie studio.

A: Yes, well, I'm never satisfied with standing still. I'm always in need of something to do, and DreamWorks is that thing. Steven, Jeffrey and I feel that we have the secret to make a viable new studio and distributor to stand alongside everyone else, especially one to stand on their turf as conglomerates with its fingers in every part of the entertainment industry.

Q: So, does that mean more than just movies and TV?

A: Yes, we want to break into video games, arcade ventures, theme parks, book publishing. DreamWorks will be able to stand on its own in this regard and become a rising force in the industry.

Q: When does DreamWorks put out its first product?

A: Right now, we've got a development deal with ABC to produce shows. We have several ideas that we think will be real winners, and our intent is to have those shows out next year. As for film, we hope to have something out by that time as well, but if not then, it will certainly be 1997. We're also still getting capitalization and investments for the company, and looking for offices.

Q: When you sold your label, Geffen Records, to MCA five years ago, you became a billionaire, and you didn't have to do anything ever again. Why did you choose to risk everything for DreamWorks?

A: The real core of this comes from Jeffrey, when he was out of Disney, wanting something to do with himself; and the fact that Steven, after _Schindler's List_ and _Jurassic Park_ , didn't know if he could direct anything ever again, but needed a new challenge. I heard about their commiserating, and I said I'd help.

Q: Now, over the years, you've certainly made a lot of enemies. Not just industry executives, but a lot of former acts that you had under your roster. People like Laura Nyro, Donna Summer, the litigation with Don Henley and Neil Young, and losing Aerosmith to Sony. How does that make you feel?

A: Well if I'm being honest I would consider myself to be the music industry equivalent of Harvey Weinstein, as in I'm a guy who knows talent when he sees it in action. Like Harv I've saved many careers and brought many new, young, and talented souls into the public consciousness. Though I'm a persuasive man always trying to help others I must sadly live with the fact that I can't help or save everyone and that some people are doomed to self destruct without "proper guidance" in their career.

Q: Speaking of Harvey, do you know him that well? Have you ever considered the possibility of DreamWorks hooking up with Miramax on projects?

A: I've seen Harvey at a few functions and parties, and his brother, Bob. We've had dinner together a few times. I'm not a man who's that impressed with the work of other executive types that often, but the Weinsteins have certainly impressed me. They have a real winning formula at Miramax, and they deserve all the accolades and financial success they've received. As to whether DreamWorks will work with them, I can't say, but if the stars align properly, you never know.

Q: That would be a real coup, though, wouldn't it? Steven Spielberg directing a movie for Miramax?

A: It would, it would!

* * *

"The MCA Sale: The Deal; Seagram Puts the Finishing Touches on Its $5.7 Billion Acquisition of MCA," by Geraldine Fabrikant, _The New York Times_ , April 10, 1995

The Seagram Company and the Matsushita Electric Industrial Company said last night that they had agreed that Seagram would buy 80 percent of the entertainment giant MCA Inc. for $5.7 billion in cash. Matsushita, which paid $6.6 billion for MCA in 1990, will retain a 20 percent interest.

When the news of the imminent deal circulated last week, Wall Street reacted unfavorably, pushing Seagram's stock down 17 percent for the week, to $26.50 on Friday. Not only do analysts feel that Seagram is overpaying for MCA, but many also believe that Seagram erred in selling its huge stake in DuPont to finance the MCA purchase. The DuPont stake generated steady income and dividends.

Edgar Bronfman Jr., the chief executive of Seagram, sounded elated yesterday as he and others in the deal prepared to go to a celebratory dinner at the Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles. He and his father, Edgar M. Bronfman, had traveled to the West Coast to join Yoichi Morishita, president of Matsushita, and others for the final signing of the purchase.

Mr. Bronfman said Seagram was paying less than 15 times the estimated 1994 earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, a price he said was "very attractive." A person close to the negotiations said MCA had, in fact, $480 million in such earnings last year, putting the multiple at about 15. One person close to MCA, however, said interpreting those numbers could be extremely complex.

We could have gone into the open market and bought stock in another company at a full price or a premium," Mr. Bronfman said. He argued that the entertainment business was the fifth-fastest-growing industry in the United States. "And we had a chance to buy MCA -- it is one of the six seats at the table," he added, referring to the big film studios. MCA is also one of the six largest recorded music companies.

The principal assets of MCA include Universal Pictures, MCA Television, MCA Music Entertainment, Putnam Publishing, the Universal Studios theme park in Hollywood and a half interest in the Universal Studios theme park in Florida, as well as interests of about 50 percent in USA Network and 40 percent in the Cineplex Odeon theater chain.

Mr. Bronfman seemed convinced that when Wall Street better understood the numbers in the deal, investors would be less critical.

For its part, Matsushita said the sale of 80 percent of MCA would allow it to deploy its resources in its "core business" of electronics, including multimedia and the development of key components like semiconductors, optical disks, liquid crystal displays and batteries.

A Matsushita spokesman said this morning in Japan that Mr. Morishita would hold a news conference on Tuesday at the company's headquarters in Osaka. He said the company would have no further comment until that time.

Mr. Bronfman's enthusiasm for the deal has been palpable. He said yesterday that representatives of Matsushita first contacted Seagram directly in late January and he made his first trip to Osaka on March 6, when he began talking directly to Mr. Morishita. He made a second trip two weeks ago.

Mr. Bronfman left little doubt about his eagerness to be in the entertainment business, but several analysts said privately that Seagram was taking a big gamble because it had no experience in the business and would be heavily dependent on whomever it hired to run MCA.

The announcement of the deal left two big questions unanswered: who will run MCA and what Seagram will do with its 15 percent stake in Time Warner Inc., whose similar businesses could present antitrust complications.

Barry Diller, the former president of QVC, was said to have turned down an offer to head MCA. But Mr. Bronfman said he had not offered the job to Mr. Diller, who could not be reached for comment.

At least one person with knowledge of the discussions said Mr. Bronfman had been in daily contact with Michael Ovitz, the powerful Hollywood agent, several times in recent weeks, suggesting that Mr. Ovitz would play a big role at MCA.

Mr. Bronfman acknowledged that he had spoken with Mr. Ovitz during the transaction but said the contact was infrequent because Mr. Ovitz was one of Matsushita's representatives.

He said he had made no decision about who he wanted to run the company, but there was time to decide because the deal would not close until June. He has already scheduled a lunch for today with Lew Wasserman, the chairman of MCA, and Sidney J. Sheinberg, its president, to discuss the deal, reiterating that he had been precluded from talking to them earlier because of the negotiations.

Thus, Mr. Sheinberg and Mr. Wasserman were kept in the dark about the sale, despite the fact that Mr. Sheinberg in particular is close friends with Mr. Ovitz.

People close to the deal said yesterday that there was relatively little chance that the purchase could unravel. Seagram still has the right to due diligence, which lets it closely examine the operations of MCA's operations in depth. Typically when a company performs due diligence, if it finds seriously unanticipated problems, it can back out.

In this buyout, however, "there is a very strict definition of what Seagram can find to break the deal," one person involved in the negotiations said.

The merger also requires Federal antitrust clearance, but that issue is not likely to cause a problem, these people said, because despite Seagram's holdings in Time Warner, Seagram does not have control or a seat on Time Warner's board.

It was unclear yesterday what Seagram planned to do with its Time Warner stake, for which it has spent about $2 billion in the last two years. "This has been a very intense period," Mr. Bronfman said. "I've been concentrating on MCA. I don't have any philosophy about Time Warner."

One person close to the talks said he expected Seagram would begin negotiating with various companies that might be interested in acquiring the block.

In Japan, meanwhile, there has been speculation that Matsushita might try to buy another company in the United States rather that have to convert the proceeds of the MCA sale back into yen and suffer a huge loss. Because the yen has appreciated against the dollar so much since 1990, the price at which Matsushita sold MCA on a yen basis is more than 200 billion yen - or more than $2 billion - less than it bought it for.

After buying its share of MCA, Seagram will have roughly $2.5 billion left from the sale of its DuPont stake for about $8.8 billion. Mr. Bronfman said Seagram would pay off $2 billion of its $5 billion or so in debt. He did not rule out using some of the funds for acquisitions.

Seagram is considered likely to raise money by selling its Time Warner stake. The most talked about candidate is US West, but US West is already an investor in Time Warner Entertainment, the division of Time Warner that owns its cable systems, Warner Bros. and Home Box Office. US West is said to want to bolster its stake in cable, if anything, but not its holdings in Time Warner's other businesses. Seagram acquired its Time Warner shares at an average price of $38.20. The stock closed on Friday at $38.25.

The process of selling MCA began in November, when Matsushita hired Allen & Company and Mr. Ovitz as advisers. Allen & Company was hired to look at MCA's overall financials, and Mr. Ovitz was hired to tell Matsushita where MCA fit in the film industry. But it was not until several weeks ago that the negotiations heated up. For one thing, it took the bankers at least a month to get the data prepared and then took the Japanese more time to come to a consensus, according to a person close to the negotiations.

The negotiations were facilitated by a longstanding history of relationships between the advisers for the two companies. Simpson Thacher & Bartlett has been the law firm for the two companies for some time. Matsushita had worked closely with lawyers at Simpson Thacher Bartlett in the acquisition of MCA in 1990 and had high regard for both Edward Masinter and Steven Banner, two Simpson Thacher partners. By this year, Mr. Banner had left Simpson Thacher to become senior executive vice president at Seagram, thus providing an easy bridge between the two companies. However, Mr. Banner is currently ill.

In the negotiations with Matsushita, Seagram was represented by Sherman & Sterling, and the deal was signed last night in that firm's offices in Los Angeles. Both Mr. Bronfman and Mr. Morishita attended the signing, along with a host of lawyers, bankers and advisers that included Mr. Ovitz. Matsushita used Mr. Masinter and John Finley at Simpson Thacher, who led the negotiations. Its bankers were CS First Boston.

With the deal done, Wall Street will be watching closely to see who Mr. Bronfman brings in as management - and how much it costs Seagram.

Few in Hollywood can forget the way the Sony Corporation chased after Peter Guber and Jon Peters to run Columbia Pictures, catching them only with a highly inflated compensation package.

Hollywood executives are well aware that Mr. Ovitz owns his own company, Creative Artists Agency, which may mean that he would demand a very lucrative package if, in fact, he wanted to leave.

For all the issues yet to be managed, Mr. Bronfman was clearly elated last night.

"I feel great," he said. "We have transformed our company. We've unlocked DuPont. The stock has been a proxy for the S&P 500." He, at least, is convinced that Seagram can significantly outperform the market.

Mr. Bronfman said all the members of the Bronfman family had supported the deal. "I went to the board on their behalf," he said.

He said the board's deliberations were long and there was a meeting on Thursday to approve the sale of the DuPont stock and another meeting yesterday to approve the purchase of MCA.

* * *

"MCA Makes Huge Deal With DreamWorks Studio," by John Horn, Associated Press, June 13, 1995 **  
  
**The Seagram Co. Ltd. successfully signed Hollywood’s most-touted creative alliance Tuesday to a 10-year deal with its newly acquired entertainment company MCA Inc.  
  
The deal with DreamWorks, the first major pact by MCA under its new owner, comes only a week after MCA failed to lure talent agent Michael Ovitz as its leader. But it is a dramatic statement of DreamWorks’ faith in MCA.  
  
The powerful DreamWorks studio was formed last October by director Steven Spielberg, record mogul David Geffen and former Disney studio chief Jeffrey Katzenberg.  
  
"People with this much talent could have made this deal anywhere," said Tom Pollock, chairman of MCA’s Motion Picture Group. "They made it with us for a number of reasons. One is that we’re very good distributors. This is also Steven’s home... it has been for 26 years."  
  
Under the deal, MCA will buy 2 percent of DreamWorks for about $50 million. The deal could yield MCA $1 billion in revenues, mostly in distribution fees, over the course of the deal, the parties estimated. Under the deal, MCA and its subsidiaries will distribute DreamWorks’ movies internationally and its records and home video releases worldwide. But as expected, DreamWorks will retain domestic motion picture distribution rights. The agreement gives MCA rights to characters and concepts created by DreamWorks at MCA’s theme parks.  
  
"This is extraordinarily important for MCA," Seagram President Edgar Bronfman Jr. said in an interview. "There is no better creative talent in Hollywood than the three DreamWorks principals."  
  
Seagram, the Canadian liquor maker, bought 80 percent of MCA for $5.7 billion last week.  
  
Spielberg directed the two highest-grossing films of all time, _Jurassic Park_ and _E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial_. Katzenberg’s Disney reign included the smashes _The Lion King_ , _Aladdin_ and _Pretty Woman_. Geffen’s record label handles Guns N’ Roses, Aerosmith and Nirvana, and many top alternative rock acts.  
  
DreamWorks was lured by every major studio but negotiated only with MCA, Geffen and Bronfman said. But the deal was delayed by uncertainty over MCA’s management. Bronfman offered Ovitz $250 million to leave his Creative Artists Agency to run the entertainment giant but he declined the offer June 5.  
  
MCA President Sid Sheinberg, who was to be replaced by Ovitz, will remain in charge of MCA "as long as practical,″ Bronfman said. No other person has surfaced yet as a likely successor.  
  
"We made the deal in a matter of hours,″ Geffen said in an interview. "It just took us a long time to sit down.″  
  
DreamWorks may also build its studio on the lot of MCA’s Universal Pictures, although no final decision has been made. "Edgar has invited us to be here if we want to,″ Geffen said.  
  
DreamWorks expects to release up to 10 animated and live-action movies a year by 1997 or 1998. Its first live-action movie should be in theaters in 1996, and DreamWorks animators have begun work on a story based on the Ten Commandments that is scheduled for 1998.  
  
Universal Pictures will produce any Universal sequels Spielberg is obligated to direct or produce, including follow-ups to _Jurassic Park_ and _Casper_. Universal and DreamWorks will co-produce and co-finance some 30 movie projects now in development at Spielberg’s Amblin Entertainment production company. Any new films will be financed by DreamWorks alone.  
  
DreamWorks’ new record label has not announced any new acts but is said to be negotiating with disgruntled Sony artist George Michael. Geffen declined comment except to say DreamWorks’ first record could be out late this year.  
  
The international market is a critical component of the agreement. Overseas revenues dwarf domestic receipts for movies, and MCA’s music division has recently built a powerful international distribution network.  
  
MCA’s music unit has been more profitable than its movie division. Bronfman, who is a songwriter, said: "Music is one of the best businesses in the entertainment business. For MCA, this is an outstanding opportunity.″  
  
Wall Street reacted favorably to the announcement. Seagram stock, which has been slumping, surged $1.50 to $30.825.

* * *

"Disney To Acquire CapCities/ABC in $19 Billion Merger," by Steven P. Rosenfeld, Associated Press, July 31, 1995  
  
The Walt Disney Company will acquire Capital Cities/ABC Inc. in a surprise merger of entertainment giants valued at about $19 billion, the companies announced today.  
  
Under the agreement, New York-based Capital Cities, which owns the ABC television network, will become a subsidiary of Burbank, California-based Disney, which produces ABC’s hit comedy series, _Home Improvement_.  
  
The combined company will be called The Walt Disney Company, with Disney’s chairman, Michael D. Eisner, a former entertainment president at ABC, continuing as chairman and chief executive.  
  
Disney is best known for cartoon characters like Mickey Mouse, animated movies like _The Lion King_ and _Pocahontas_ through its distribution arm Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures (named since Eisner took over in 1985, formerly called Buena Vista), and its Disney World and Disneyland theme parks.  
  
The company, which also has interests in parks in Japan and Europe, operates the Disney Channel on cable television. It has 400 Disney Stores and licenses its characters to manufacturers. Disney also publishes books, magazines and music.  
  
In addition to ABC-TV, Capital Cities has a network of 225 affiliated stations and owns eight TV stations. It plans to acquire two more in August.  
  
It also owns 80 percent of sports cable broadcaster ESPN Inc., has interests in the Lifetime Television and A&E Television Networks cable channels (both joint ventures with Hearst Communications), and has 21 radio stations. It also publishes newspapers, shopping guides, magazines and books, and has interests in international broadcasting.  
  
The acquisition, already approved by the boards of both companies, is subject to shareholder approval and federal antitrust review. The companies said they expected the deal to be concluded by early 1996.  
  
Because the businesses are complementary, the companies said they do not expect jobs will be lost in the combination.  
  
Under the proposal, Capital Cities shareholders would receive one share of Disney stock and $65 in cash for each of their shares. At the close of trading Friday, Disney stock was at $57.37 1/2 a share and Capital Cities at $96.12 1/2. The deal would value Capital Cities at $122.37 1/2 a share. The companies had combined annual revenues of about $16.5 billion in 1994.  
  
The announcement comes at a time of consolidation in the media industry. There have been reports for weeks speculating that Westinghouse Electric Corp. is putting together a $5 billion bid to buy CBS Inc. Recently, Viacom Inc. agreed to sell its local cable television operating systems to Tele-Communications Inc. in a deal valued at $2.25 billion. Gannett Co., the nation’s leading newspaper publisher, announced it is acquiring Multimedia Inc., a publisher and producer of talk shows, for more than $1.7 billion.  
  
Eisner said the deal "is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to create an outstanding entertainment and media company.″  
  
"Disney and Capital Cities/ABC have created some of the most recognized and respected brands in the world,″ said a joint statement by Eisner and Thomas S. Murphy, chairman of Capital Cities. "The merger will create tremendous value for the shareholders of each company by taking full advantage of the complementary strengths of each organization.″  
  
Murphy will relinquish his titles of chairman and CEO when the merger takes effect and join the Disney board. Robert A. Iger would remain as president of Capital Cities/ABC, but also move to become president and COO of The Walt Disney Company, duties that Eisner has also been effectively handling for the past year, since the death of Frank Wells.  
  
Eisner, appearing with Murphy this morning on ABC’s _Good Morning America_ , said the deal fell together a week ago Thursday at an Idaho resort.  
  
"I literally passed Tom Murphy in Sun Valley on the street ... and said, 'Tom, I think the time is right now. Every part of your company is working. Every part of our company is working. There are no fires in any divisions. Disneyland in Paris is doing great. They’re No. 1 in prime time. Maybe now is the time,'" said Eisner. "He simply looked at me and said OK.″  
  
Murphy said, "We’re not putting two television networks together or two movie studios together or two theme parks together. We’re in allied fields but we’re in different fields. I don’t think there’s any domination of the media or any part of the media so that we would be damaging competition at all," he said.

* * *

"Turner to Merge Into Time Warner, A $7.5 Billion Deal," by Mark Landler, _The New York Times_ , September 23, 1995 **  
  
**Ending a tumultuous five-week courtship, Time Warner Inc. and Turner Broadcasting System said yesterday that they would merge their sprawling operations, reinforcing Time Warner's position as the world's largest communications company.  
  
Time Warner said it would buy the 82 percent of Turner it did not already own in a stock deal worth roughly $7.5 billion. Ted Turner, the maverick founder of the Cable News Network and the chairman of Turner Broadcasting, is to become vice chairman of Time Warner.  
  
"It took five weeks of fun to get to this point," said Gerald M. Levin, the chairman of Time Warner, who led the negotiations with Mr. Turner. "But this is a sublime combination."  
  
Mr. Turner, who will cede control of his cable-programming company after a decade of fruitless efforts to acquire a television network, said: "I'm tired of being little for my whole life. This is a chance to see the world from a different perspective."  
  
At a crowded news conference in New York that drew Mr. Turner's wife, Jane Fonda, the two executives stood before a wall emblazoned with the powerful brand names the new company would own -- everything from CNN and Time magazine to Warner Brothers and the Cartoon Network.  
  
With projected revenues of $19.8 billion, the company would leapfrog even The Walt Disney Company, which is creating a $16.4 billion giant with its planned acquisition of Capital Cities/ABC Inc.  
  
Wall Street's reaction to the deal was muted. But the complex transaction sailed into rough water almost immediately after it was announced yesterday because of thorny management issues and a conflict between Time Warner and another partner, US West Inc.  
  
Moreover, the structure of the deal drew a sharp protest from two other big shareholders in Turner Broadcasting: the Comcast Corporation and Continental Cablevision Inc. The companies said Time Warner treated them unfairly to win the approval of John C. Malone, the chief executive of Tele-Communications, who controls 21 percent of Turner's stock and held veto power over the deal.  
  
US West, a regional Bell telephone company that owns a $2.5 billion stake in Time Warner's film and cable businesses, filed a lawsuit in Delaware Chancery Court yesterday to block the merger. The company said in the suit that the deal violated its partnership contract with Time Warner, since the company would own Turner businesses that compete with the assets in its partnership.  
  
Under the all-stock deal, Turner Broadcasting's shareholders will receive three-quarters of a Time Warner share for each Turner class A or B share. Turner's widely held class B shares fell 25 cents yesterday, to $28.875, while Time Warner's shares rose 87.5 cents, to $40.625  
  
Although media rep Levin had left the management structure of the new company almost wholly undefined.  
  
"Strategically, this deal is terrific," said John Tinker, a media analyst at Furman Selz Inc., "but if it just leads to infighting among the executives, it will not be successful."  
  
Time Warner has been dogged by conflicts in its executive suite since the company was created by the 1989 merger of Time Inc. and Warner Communications. Those problems flared anew during Time Warner's protracted negotiations to acquire Turner.  
  
A main bone of contention is the management of Time Warner's Home Box Office unit. The company said yesterday that it would move the pay-cable network into a newly created video division, which would include Turner's seven cable networks and be headed by Mr. Turner.  
  
When that proposal first appeared several weeks ago, it drew strident opposition from Michael J. Fuchs, the chairman of HBO and a member of the Turner board, according to executives familiar with the talks. These people said that Mr. Fuchs, who is also chairman of Time Warner's music division, did not want to lose control of HBO.  
  
Mr. Levin said the companies would not resolve such management issues for several months. Moreover, he said the merger would effectively dissolve the existing management hierarchy at Time Warner.  
  
"This transaction creates an entirely new structure for the company," Mr. Levin said in a joint interview with Mr. Turner. "Reporting lines, structure and titles are completely meaningless to me."  
  
If Time Warner is dissolving its tangled hierarchy, it is making its new ownership structure very clear. Mr. Turner, who owns about 26 percent of Turner's shares, will become the largest Time Warner shareholder, with 10 percent of Time Warner's voting stock.  
  
Mr. Turner will also join Time Warner's board and will name another director. Executives familiar with the company said Time Warner would pay Mr. Turner roughly the same salary and bonus as Mr. Levin.  
  
Tele-Communications, which holds its Turner shares through an affiliated company, Liberty Media, will end up with a 9 percent stake in Time Warner. But Liberty's shares will be placed in a voting trust to be controlled by Mr. Levin as long as he is chairman of Time Warner.  
  
That is because Federal regulations prohibit one company from owning substantial equity in cable systems that reach more than 30 percent of the nation's households. Together, Time Warner and Tele-Communications reach almost half of America's cable households.  
  
Although he exerted strong influence over Turner Broadcasting as a major shareholder, Mr. Malone said yesterday that he was content to be a passive investor in the combined company.  
  
"This represents a total endorsement by us of Jerry," Mr. Malone said in an interview, "You put together Jerry Levin's strong hand with Ted Turner's creativity and enthusiasm, and you will quickly distance yourself from the rest of the media pack."  
  
But analysts noted that Mr. Levin would not continue to vote Liberty's shares if the Federal regulations on cable ownership were dropped. Mr. Malone said he thought that was unlikely.  
  
Time Warner also agreed to amend its anti-takeover defenses to allow Liberty or another investor to buy more than 15 percent of its voting shares. Under the plan, Time Warner would put into effect the so-called "poison pill" if an investor tried to purchase more than 18 percent of its voting stock.  
  
Mr. Malone said he would not rule out buying more shares. By granting Mr. Levin the right to vote Liberty's shares, Mr. Malone said he also hoped to help Mr. Levin quash any corporate intrigue. "This is like the king and his barons," he said. "You need to give enough power to the guy in charge to hand out rewards and break knees."  
  
Mr. Malone also secured a lucrative deal for Liberty and Tele-Communications in return for approving the merger. In addition to receiving a slight premium for Liberty's class C convertible preferred stock, Time Warner and Turner signed 20-year agreements with Tele-Communications to supply CNN, TNT and other cable networks to the company's cable systems.  
  
That deal provoked a showdown between Turner and two other shareholders, Comcast and Continental. Although both companies are also receiving a premium for their class C shares, Time Warner and Turner have not signed a similar long-term distribution agreement with either of them.  
  
Brian L. Roberts, president of Comcast, and Timothy P. Neher, vice chairman of Continental, are directors of Turner. At a stormy board meeting on Thursday night, both men refused to vote on the merger.  
  
"We are deeply troubled by the process that guided this decision, and particularly by the preferential treatment afforded to one shareholder," Mr. Roberts and Mr. Neher said in a joint statement yesterday.  
  
Executives close to Comcast and Continental said the companies were now considering whether to sue Turner Broadcasting. Mr. Levin said Time Warner was not giving Tele-Communications preferential treatment. And Mr. Malone said the two companies were simply seeking leverage to negotiate similar distribution agreements with Time Warner.  
  
US West poses a potentially greater threat. Mr. Levin dismissed the telephone company's lawsuit as having no merit. But Doug Holmes, the chief financial officer of US West, said his company's agreement with Time Warner specifically prohibited Time Warner from acquiring a cable-programming company like Turner without its approval. US West's investment in Time Warner consists of a 25.5 percent stake in the Warner Brothers studio, Time Warner Cable and HBO.  
  
Mr. Holmes noted that if Time Warner acquired Turner, it would own 75 percent of Warner Brothers, but 100 percent of New Line Cinema, a smaller studio owned by Turner. US West said it feared that Time Warner would tend to steer particularly promising films to New Line.  
  
"That, in a nutshell, is why we're uncomfortable," Mr. Holmes said.  
  
Even if Time Warner mollifies its various partners, it must gain approval in Washington. Federal officials said yesterday that the proposed deal would be closely examined for possible antitrust issues and to determine whether the new entity would have to sell any assets to keep from running afoul of antitrust laws.  
  
Consumer advocates said the deal was worrisome because it would link a leading provider of cable programming with the two largest cable distributors.  
  
Perhaps Mr. Levin's greatest challenge will be to rally the troops behind the combined Time Warner-Turner. Several top Time Warner officials were on hand to express their approval at the news conference.  
  
"I've been in favor of this deal from the very beginning," said Robert A. Daly, the chairman of the Warner Brothers studio. He said Turner's cable networks would be a powerful new distribution channel for Warner's film and television programming.  
  
But even as Mr. Levin proudly gestured to a group of senior Time Warner executives seated in the front row, Mr. Fuchs was watching the presentation alone on a television screen outside the gallery. ****

* * *

"MCA Offers $200 Million to Acquire a 50% Stake in Interscope Records," by Chuck Philips, _Los Angeles Times_ , January 19, 1996 **  
  
**MCA Inc. entered into high-level talks Thursday to purchase a 50% stake in Interscope Records, the controversial Westwood-based label that Time Warner Inc. dumped four months ago following a national controversy over rap music lyrics.  
  
Although no contract has been signed and several elements of the deal are still to be resolved, key sources predicted that an agreement will be consummated before Monday.  
  
Risking a storm of controversy, MCA has offered Interscope about $200 million to purchase a half-stake of the label, with an option to acquire the remainder after five years, sources said.  
  
MCA apparently is willing to risk the criticism because adding Interscope would bolster MCA’s penetration in the all-important rock market, as well as move the firm from the sixth-largest to No. 4 in the domestic music industry. Interscope is widely regarded as the top new firm in the business, consistently breaking new acts in the rock, rap and rhythm and blues genres.  
  
Since its acquisition by Seagram Co. in June, Universal City-based MCA has moved aggressively to capitalize on the chaos at Warner Music Group, courting five ousted Warner executives and now Interscope.  
  
Interscope triggered a political uproar last year after critics accused the Time Warner-affiliated company of profiting from offensive pop albums. Interscope distributes explicit rap and rock music on the cutting-edge Death Row and Nothing/TVT labels, whose rosters include Dr. Dre and Nine Inch Nails.  
  
C. DeLores Tucker, chair of the National Political Congress of Black Women, who launched last year’s anti-rap campaign, said she has already sent letters to Time Warner’s competitors--including MCA--warning them to stay clear of Interscope.  
  
“Whoever picks up Interscope is going to be our next target,” Tucker said Thursday. “As long as Interscope continues to sell porno gangsta rap to our children, we’re going after them."  
  
Representatives for MCA declined to comment Thursday.  
  
Under the MCA proposal, Interscope would retain complete creative control over the label’s recordings. But sources said that MCA, unlike Time Warner, would not be required to distribute products that it deemed “too controversial.” An oral agreement has been reached that would allow Interscope to distribute potentially offensive material elsewhere, sources said.  
  
Industry analysts doubt that Tucker or other rap critics will have much luck attacking MCA, because, unlike Time Warner, it is owned by Seagram, a Canadian-based liquor company. Some executives question the effectiveness of Tucker’s crusade as streams of potentially offensive rock and rap albums continue to be released on labels owned by Time Warner and other record companies.  
  
Although Interscope has often been painted in the news media as a “gangsta rap” company because of its association with Dr. Dre and Snoop Doggy Dogg, the bulk of its artist roster consists of top-selling rock acts such as Bush, Primus, Deep Blue Something and the Toadies.  
  
Pushing the boundaries of mainstream pop by transforming underground acts into MTV stars, Interscope has sold more than $380 million in albums in the United States in the last three years--cornering more than 2% of the total U.S. market.  
  
Founded five years ago by record producer Jimmy Iovine and media entrepreneur Ted Field, Interscope is widely regarded as the most successful new label to arrive on the scene since Geffen Records in the early ‘80s. Geffen, which releases music by such acts as Nirvana, Hole and Guns N’ Roses, is already owned by MCA. With Interscope, MCA would immediately bolster its credibility as a leading force in the crucial rock market.  
  
The Interscope deal marks the first big move by new MCA Music Entertainment Chairman Doug Morris, who flew into town Monday to convince Interscope to join MCA instead of Thorn-EMI and PolyGram, both of which made competing bids.  
  
Some of the key details of the deal were hammered out Thursday by Morris and Seagram Chairman Edgar Bronfman Jr. as they flew back to New York on the corporate jet.  
  
Sources said MCA’s offer includes an option to buy the remaining half of Interscope in 2001. The value of the remaining 50% will be determined by a formula that takes into account the firm’s performance over the next five years; it is likely to exceed $100 million.  
  
MCA’s New Tune  
MCA executives, in a move that would transform the Seagram entertainment conglomerate into a rock powerhouse, said Thursday that they want to buy a 50% interest in controversial Interscope Records. The move is yet another example of an effort by MCA to capitalize on the chaos at Warner Music, which dumped Westwood-based Interscope four months ago after complaints about the explicit lyrics of its rap and rock music. MCA has also courted five ousted Warner executives and hired its former music group executive, Doug Morris.  
  
MCA  
Although MCA has the nation’s strongest country music division, it never got a foothold in the crucial rock market, and its once-booming black music division has sagged. By adding Interscope’s roster of alternative groups to those it has at its Geffen Records division, MCA hopes to be an immediate player in rock.  
  
INTERSCOPE  
Interscope has become one of the most successful start-up record companies ever. Although its roster is the envy of the record business, it has elicited sharp criticism from some--most notably GOP presidential front-runner Bob Dole (R-Kan.)--who say some of its groups’ lyrics are offensive.  
 ****

* * *

"Disney to Acquire Pixar Animation Studios", PRNewswire, January 24, 1996 **  
  
**Burbank, CA and Emeryville, CA – Furthering its strategy of delivering outstanding creative content, Michael D. Eisner, President and Chief Executive Officer of The Walt Disney Company (NYSE: DIS), announced today that Disney has agreed to acquire computer animation company Pixar Animation Studios in an all-stock transaction, expected to be completed by this summer. Under terms of the agreement, 2.3 Disney shares will be issued for each Pixar share. Based on Pixar’s fully diluted shares outstanding, the transaction value is $2.4 billion.  
  
This acquisition, coming soon after the official approval of Disney’s $19 billion purchase of Capital Cities/ABC, combines Pixar’s rising creative and technological resources with Disney’s unparalleled portfolio of world-class family entertainment, characters, theme parks and other franchises, resulting in vast potential for new landmark creative output and technological innovation that can fuel future growth across Disney’s businesses. Garnering an impressive box office and award nomination run with the release of last year’s _Toy Story_ , Pixar’s creative team and global box office success have made it a potential leader in quality family entertainment through incomparable storytelling abilities, creative vision and innovative technical artistry.  
  
“With this transaction, we welcome and embrace Pixar’s unique culture, which has already fostered one of the most innovative and successful films in history. The talented Pixar team has delivered outstanding animation coupled with compelling stories and enduring characters that have captivated audiences of all ages worldwide and redefined the genre by setting a new standard of excellence,” Eisner said. “The addition of Pixar significantly enhances Disney animation, which is a critical creative engine for driving growth across our businesses. This investment significantly advances our strategic priorities, which include – first and foremost – delivering high-quality, compelling creative content to consumers, the application of new technology and global expansion to drive long-term shareholder value.”  
  
Pixar President Ed Catmull will serve as President of the new Pixar and Disney Animation Studios, reporting to Eisner and Joe Roth, Chairman of The Walt Disney Studios. In addition, Pixar Executive Vice President John Lasseter will be Chief Creative Officer of the animation studios along with Roy Edward Disney and Animation Studios chairman Peter Schneider, CCO of Pixar, as well as Principal Creative Advisor at Walt Disney Imagineering, where he will provide his expertise in the design of new attractions for Disney theme parks around the world, reporting directly to Eisner. Pixar Chairman and CEO Steve Jobs will be appointed to Disney’s Board of Directors as a non-independent member. With the addition of Jobs, 11 of Disney’s 14 directors will be independent. Both Disney and Pixar animation units will retain their current operations and locations.  
  
“Disney and Pixar can now collaborate without the barriers that come from two different companies with two different sets of shareholders,” said Jobs. “Now, everyone can focus on what is most important, creating innovative stories, characters and films that delight millions of people around the world.”  
  
“Pixar’s culture of collaboration and innovation has its roots in Disney Animation. Our story and production processes are derivatives of the Walt Disney ‘school’ of animated filmmaking,” said Dr. Catmull. “Just like the Disney classics, Pixar’s films are made for family audiences the world over and, most importantly, for the child in everyone. We can think of nothing better for us than to continue to make great movies with Disney.”  
  
The acquisition brings to Disney the talented creative teams behind the tremendously popular original Pixar blockbusters to come, who will now be involved in the nurturing and future development of these properties, including potential feature animation sequels. Disney will also have increased ability to fully capitalize on Pixar-created characters and franchises on high-growth digital platforms such as video games, broadband and wireless, as well as traditional media outlets, including theme parks, consumer products and live stage plays.  
  
“For many of us at Pixar, it was the magic of Disney that influenced us to pursue our dreams of becoming animators, artists, storytellers and filmmakers,” said Lasseter. “For 10 years we have created our shorts, and now our films in the manner inspired by Walt Disney and the great Disney animators – great stories and characters in an environment made richer by technical advances. It is exciting to continue in this tradition with Disney, the studio that started it all.”  
  
“The wonderfully productive partnership that exists between Disney and Pixar provides a strong foundation that embodies our collective spirit of creativity and imagination,” said Roth. “Under this new, strengthened animation unit, we expect to continue to grow and flourish.”  
  
Disney first entered into a feature film agreement with Pixar in 1991, resulting in the release of _Toy Story_ , which has been hailed as an instant classic upon its release in November 1995. Disney had been looking to merely extend their relationship in a joint venture, but chose instead to acquire the company and ensure that Pixar remains a cherished unity of the Disney empire.  
  
The Boards of Directors of Disney and Pixar have approved the transaction, which is subject to clearance under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antritrust Improvements Act, certain non-United States merger control regulations, and other customary closing conditions. The agreement will require the approval of Pixar’s shareholders. Jobs, who owns approximately 50.6% of the outstanding Pixar shares, has agreed to vote a number of shares equal to 40% of the outstanding shares in favor of the transaction.  
  
The Disney Board was advised by Goldman Sachs & Co. and Bear Stearns & Co. The Pixar Board was advised by Credit Suisse.  
  
About The Walt Disney Company:  
The Walt Disney Company (NYSE: DIS), together with its subsidiaries and affiliates, is a leading diversified international family entertainment and media enterprise with four business segments: media networks, parks and resorts, studio entertainment and consumer products. Disney is a Dow 30 company. ****

* * *

"Disney, McDonald's Seal Deal, Marketing Alliance Cuts Off Burger King's Tie-Ins," by Karen Fessler, _The Seattle Times_ , May 23, 1996

McDonald's Corporation and The Walt Disney Company said they formed an alliance that gives the world's largest fast-food chain exclusive marketing rights for Disney products, shutting out rival Burger King Corp.

The 10-year agreement, terms of which weren't disclosed, will link Disney movies, theme parks and home videos with McDonald's 18,700 restaurants worldwide, beginning in January. Previously, Disney signed agreements for individual ventures with the two main chains, as well as PepsiCo Inc.'s Pizza Hut, Taco Bell and KFC.

"Disney is aligning themselves with one of the most powerful marketing companies globally," said analyst David Londoner at Schroder Wertheim & Co. "They will enhance their own respective businesses."

The move caps Disney's efforts to link itself to some of America's best-known brands. Last month, Mattel Inc. got worldwide rights to make toys based on Disney films. In November, The Coca-Cola Company formed a joint venture with Disney to coordinate Coke's advertising campaign.

"This is the most ambitious promotional effort ever developed between two of the world's best-known family-friendly brands," Disney Chairman and CEO Michael Eisner said in a statement.

McDonald's declined to provide additional information, and Disney couldn't immediately be reached for comment.

Linking with Disney, the world's largest entertainment company, whose hit movies include _The Lion King_ and _Aladdin_ , should be a boon for McDonald's, analysts say.

Attracting kids, and the parents that take them out to eat, can make or break a restaurant chain's sales. Brand recognition is vital to pulling in customers in a market where success is about volume, not price.

"It's clearly an advantage that they have locked up Disney, which is so big and so popular with the kiddie corps," said analyst Damon Brundage with Montgomery Securities. "Assuming they haven't paid too much, I think it's a very good fit."

The announcement comes as Burger King negotiates a similar pact with DreamWorks SKG and other studios for the rights to sell toys and other promotional items based on their movies.

Burger King, a unit of Grand Metropolitan PLC, has had a series of promotional tie-ins with Disney movies such as _Beauty and the Beast_ , _Pocahontas_ and _Toy Story_.

"Burger King is disappointed that we will not be continuing our relationship with Disney, which has been one of the contributors to our successful youth and family marketing strategy over the past five years," said Corey Zywotow, a Burger King spokesman.

Burger King said the promotions were only a part of its strategy, which includes value-priced products. Burger King's same-store sales rose 12.9 percent in the past two years and it boosted its market share by 2 percentage points.

As part of the agreement, McDonald's will be the presenting sponsor of the Dinoland attraction opening in the spring of 1998 at the forthcoming Disney's Animal Kingdom gate at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida.

Oak Brook, Illinois-based McDonald's also will operate two restaurants within the Florida theme park and another at Disneyland Paris, restaurants at any new theme parks to be built, as well as freestanding limited menu locations at the four gates at the Florida park.

* * *

"Disney to Acquire Lucasfilm Ltd.", PRNewswire, May 30, 1996 **  
  
**_Global leader in high-quality family entertainment agrees to acquire world-renowned Lucasfilm Ltd, including legendary STAR WARS franchise.  
  
Acquisition continues Disney’s strategic focus on creating and monetizing the world’s best branded content, innovative technology and global growth to drive long-term shareholder value.  
  
Lucasfilm to join company’s global portfolio of world class brands including Disney, ESPN, Pixar, and ABC.  
  
STAR WARS TRILOGY SPECIAL EDITION coming to theaters in early 1997. STAR WARS: EPISODE I feature film targeted for release in May 1999._  
  
Burbank, CA and San Francisco, CA – Continuing its strategy of delivering exceptional creative content to audiences around the world, The Walt Disney Company (NYSE: DIS) has agreed to acquire Lucasfilm Ltd. in a stock and cash transaction. Lucasfilm is 100% owned by Lucasfilm Chairman and Founder, George Lucas.  
  
Under the terms of the agreement and based on the closing price of Disney stock on May 26, 1996, the transaction value is $2.05 billion, with Disney paying approximately half of the consideration in cash and issuing approximately 40 million shares at closing. The final consideration will be subject to customary post-closing balance sheet adjustments.  
  
“Lucasfilm reflects the extraordinary passion, vision, and storytelling of its founder, George Lucas,” said Michael D. Eisner, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of The Walt Disney Company. “This transaction combines a world-class portfolio of content including Star Wars, one of the greatest family entertainment franchises of all time, with Disney’s unique and unparalleled creativity across multiple platforms, businesses, and markets to generate sustained growth and drive significant long-term value.”  
  
“This is an extraordinary moment for me, for Lucasfilm, and for Star Wars,” said George Lucas, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Lucasfilm. “At this moment, we are working on the restoration of the Star Wars trilogy, in order to create a special edition more in line with my original vision from 1975, that for various reasons, I couldn’t have in the films as they were originally released. So, with the 20th anniversary of the original film on the horizon, this is a perfect opportunity for a new generation to be introduced to Star Wars and see it as it was intended. Then, the new trilogy, the prequel trilogy, establishing the backstory of Darth Vader, will be released and the story, as I’ve intended it, will be told. Having a new home within the Disney organization, Star Wars will certainly live on and flourish for many generations to come. Disney’s reach and experience give Lucasfilm the opportunity to blaze new trails in film, television, interactive media, theme parks, live entertainment, and consumer products.”  
  
Under the deal, Disney will acquire ownership of Lucasfilm, a leader in entertainment, innovation and technology, including its massively popular and “evergreen” Star Wars and Indiana Jones franchises and its operating businesses in live action film production, consumer products, animation, visual effects, and audio post production. Disney will also acquire the substantial portfolio of cutting-edge entertainment technologies that have kept audiences enthralled for many years. Lucasfilm, headquartered in San Francisco, operates under the names Lucasfilm Ltd., LucasArts, Industrial Light & Magic, Skywalker Sound and THX, and the present intent is for Lucasfilm employees to remain in their current locations.  
  
Lucas himself, Lucasfilm President Gordon Radley, and co-chairman and producer Rick McCallum will report to Walt Disney Studios Chairman Joe Roth. Additionally, McCallum will serve as the brand manager for Star Wars, working directly with Disney’s global lines of business to build, further integrate, and maximize the value of this global franchise. The Star Wars Trilogy Special Edition will be released in January, February and March 1997. Star Wars Episode I is targeted for release in May 1999, with the other two installments to come soon down the pike and Disney also expects more feature films expected to continue the Star Wars saga and grow the franchise well into the future. In addition, work on the Indiana Jones franchise, such as restarting the ABC series _The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles_ , will also come down the line.  
  
The acquisition combines two highly compatible family entertainment brands, and strengthens the long-standing beneficial relationship between them that already includes successful integration of Star Wars content into Disney theme parks in Anaheim, Orlando, Paris and Tokyo.  
  
Driven by a tremendously talented creative team, Lucasfilm’s legendary Star Wars franchise has flourished for nearly 20 years, and offers a virtually limitless universe of characters and stories to drive continued feature film releases and franchise growth over the long term. Star Wars resonates with consumers around the world and creates extensive opportunities for Disney to deliver the content across its diverse portfolio of businesses including movies, television, consumer products, games and theme parks. The franchise provides a sustainable source of high quality, branded content with global appeal and is well suited for new business models including digital platforms, putting the acquisition in strong alignment with Disney’s strategic priorities for continued long-term growth.  
  
The Lucasfilm acquisition follows Disney’s very successful acquisitions of Pixar and Capital Cities/ABC, which demonstrated the company’s unique ability to fully develop and expand the financial potential of high quality creative content with compelling characters and storytelling through the application of innovative technology and multiplatform distribution on a truly global basis to create maximum value. Adding Lucasfilm to Disney’s portfolio of world class brands significantly enhances the company’s ability to serve consumers with a broad variety of the world’s highest-quality content and to create additional long-term value for our shareholders. To meet potential antitrust concerns, Disney will sell off 80 percent of its stake in Miramax Films, acquired in 1993 for $60 million, retaining only home video rights for films with Buena Vista Home Video.  
  
The Boards of Directors of Disney and Lucasfilm have approved the transaction, which is subject to clearance under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act, certain non-United States merger control regulations, and other customary closing conditions. The agreement has been approved by the sole shareholder of Lucasfilm.  
  
About The Walt Disney Company  
The Walt Disney Company, together with its subsidiaries and affiliates, is a leading diversified international family entertainment and media enterprise with five business segments: media networks, parks and resorts, studio entertainment, interactive media, and consumer products. Disney is a Dow 30 company.  
  
About Lucasfilm Ltd.  
Founded by George Lucas in 1971, Lucasfilm is a privately held, fully-integrated entertainment company. In addition to its motion-picture and television production operations, the company’s global activities include Industrial Light & Magic and Skywalker Sound, serving the digital needs of the entertainment industry for visual-effects and audio post-production; THX, an audio reproduction standards company for movie theaters and amusement park attractions; LucasArts, a leading developer and publisher of interactive entertainment software worldwide; Lucas Licensing, which manages the global merchandising activities for Lucasfilm’s entertainment properties; Lucasfilm Animation; and Lucas Online creates Internet-based content for Lucasfilm’s entertainment properties and businesses. Additionally, Lucasfilm Singapore, produces digital animated content for film and television, as well as visual effects for feature films and multi-platform games. Lucasfilm Ltd. is headquartered in San Francisco, California.

* * *

"In Atlanta, Fear Roams Hand In Hand With Anger," by Jeff Jacobs, _Hartford Courant_ , July 28, 1996

They crawled on their hands and knees in the mud and driving rain Saturday morning, searching for shrapnel and collecting shards of evidence.

Some were from the FBI. Some were from the Department of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. They were determined, unsmiling. They nodded to one another when they came across something substantial, as if to reassure themselves that this piece was the key to apprehending one of the great cowards of the 20th century.

If the goal of this terrorist was to maximize the exposure of the dastardly handiwork, the blast was an unqualified success. If the goal was to put a stop to the XXVI Olympiad, the craven act had failed.

"But I do know one thing for sure," said Jason Sanders, 19, a security guard at the Georgia Dome and a witness to a hellish explosion and murder. "I'm scared to death to come to work."

On one side of Centennial Olympic Park sits CNN Tower. CNN brought us the Gulf War. CNN brought us the explosion that killed 19 Americans in Saudi Arabia and the explosion that killed more than 200 on TWA Flight 800. And now the eyes and ears of the modern world could beam this terrifying story from its own back yard to every one of the 197 nations attending the Olympics.

Throughout downtown Atlanta, byways were blocked as soldiers and police lined streets that all seemed to start with Peach and end with tree. On the other side of the park from CNN, however, everyone on the third floor of the Media Press Center was free to peer 50 yards across Techwood Drive and directly into the lap of this Olympic tragedy.

Ten hours earlier, a pipe bomb had exploded at Centennial Park, killing Alice S. Hawthorne, 44, a cable TV company receptionist from Albany, Georgia, and injuring more than 100. Hawthorne's 14-year-old daughter, Fallon, who police said was standing with her about 40 yards from the bomb, was hospitalized in stable condition with arm and leg wounds.

There was a second fatality. Turkish cameraman Melih Uzunyol had a heart attack racing to the scene. Uzunyol was 40.

Looking through the media center glass, the effect was as haunting as it was surreal. There were 15-foot Elvis Presley and Marilyn Monroe statues staring directly at investigators as they planted tiny red flags to mark crucial evidence spots. Statues from _Gone With the Wind_ and an inflatable Gumby were there, too. There was no one to clear the litter from the streets after the area was sealed off after the 1:25 AM blast. The result was a futuristic ghost town, where debris blew like tumbleweeds through a sea of corporate Towers of Babel dedicated to Coke, AT&T and General Motors. Folding chairs were scattered like bowling pins. Cynics had pointed to this park as the most disgusting display of commercialism in Olympic history. And now it was dead, along with two humans.

"My band was supposed to be right over there at 2 PM and they called it off," said Kurt Schwartz of the band Chilly Willy. "They said the shrapnel from the blast landed right on the stage where we were going to play." This was not the main stage, where Nirvana was playing for a live broadcast on MTV, when the blast sent a deadly hail of screws and nails from the pipe bomb. It was a blast witness Desmond Edward of Atlanta said caused "rivers of blood."

But as the downpour continued on those men from the FBI and the ATF Saturday morning, the rivers of blood Edward described had been washed away. Was it the rainwater? Or the tears of a city?

"Palestinians walked with Israelis in Atlanta this week. Iraqis walked with Iranians," said Andrew Young, Atlanta Olympic Games co- chairman. "It was a wonderful celebration of hope for peace for this planet."

How do we explain this tragedy to our children? How do we explain it to ourselves? Is U.S. Olympic silver medalist Matt Ghaffari right when he says he would love to hunt down and kick the butt of a suspect officials have said is a white American male with an indistinguishable voice?

No, says Young, former Atlanta mayor and U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Blood on blood only means centuries of blood. Atlanta is the birthplace of Martin Luther King Jr. Atlanta is a place that may have burned when Sherman passed through in 1864, but did not burn when King was assassinated 104 years later.

"Martin said violence is the language of the unheard," Young said. "In America, everybody can speak their piece. Everybody can protest nonviolently. One would think there would be no need for this kind of random violence. Yet there are obviously some people so alienated, so hopeless, so out of touch with what the dreams of humanity are all about, that they don't want to be part of it. It's so sad.

"We can only hope someday we can find a way for people to live together and be at peace with each other."

Atlanta Mayor Billy Campbell said the ultimate message is that the world cannot be beaten by terrorism. President Clinton called the attack "an act of cowardice that stands in sharp contrast to the courage of the Olympic athletes."

The rights of individual freedom must be weighed against the demands for individual security. Before these Games can be guaranteed to give us Kerri Strug, are we willing to relinquish some freedoms for safety?

"We have a saying in Ethiopia that you must take care of your wife before you take care of your friend and his wife, said a cabdriver, Abebe. "I come to America. I want us to be safe and take care of America first. I am willing for soldiers to protect us to stop such a thing. This is so sad for my new city, so very sad. May Allah protect you, my friend."

Only yards away from Centennial Park, where thousands roamed freely before Saturday, there was intense security entering the Georgia Dome, Omni and World Congress Center. This blast easily could have killed far, far more.

"If this was an international terrorism group that really knew what it was doing, Centennial Park would be a crater today," Schwartz said. "I think it's a small-timer. It's mandatory the Games continue and the city press on."

And so the Olympics and Atlanta did press on. But even on a night when the fastest men in the world gathered for the 100-meter dash at Olympic Stadium, everyone knew no human could outrun the ugly specter of violence.

"At first I was saddened and now I am furious," said former U.S. swimming gold medalist Donna De Varona. "I could see in the future every spectator credentialed and fingerprinted. We may have to hold the Games on an island or a sealed city."

And over in the sealed city known as Centennial Park, the FBI and ATF continued to search. The flags, designated to be flown at half-staff the rest of the Olympics, were still flying high. It was sad no one received clearance to lower them.

* * *

Kurt Loder Interviews Van Halen backstage after MTV Video Music Awards, September 4, 1996

Kurt Loder: Nice segue, I'm here with Van Halen. Guys, when you walked in today with Mr. Lee Roth, you got a standing ovation. What do you think the audience is trying to tell you?

Alex Van Halen: I think there's a lot of history with the guys in this band. I think since the very beginning, the idea was for the band to establish a special relationship with the audience, and I think the people can sense when you're BS-ing them and when you're not.

KL: You officially said onstage tonight that the four of you are back together as a unit, which really brought the house down. So what's the timeline of when you guys are gonna record, tour?

David Lee Roth: We've already finished several songs, and they are sensational! This, and you know, what you always expect that it won't add up. Usually, when an act reconvenes, an act like this, a band like this, it doesn't add up, age takes its toll. Not at all. Not in this case at all. We have a spectacular history.

Eddie Van Halen: We're gonna work on a couple of videos for the songs, and take it from there and see where that leads us.

KL: How does it feel to be back together?

EVH: You know, like Alex said, the magic speaks for itself.

KL: Did you say magic?

Michael Anthony: Yes, it was.

DLR: (Dirty joke not transcribed because censor cut out the audio)

AVH: That was ageless.

KL: So are you all living together in a country cottage now? How's it working, are you guys like in regular contact to make tunes?

AVH: I think that when you make music, there's an energy that develops in the room you really can't contain. You don't think about it, it either happens or it doesn't. And when the four of us came together and made music, it happened. You don't question it.

KL: How did this happen? Did somebody call somebody, did you show up on their door?

DLR: I had been down around Florida area for the last year, and I was walking down the street, and I saw somebody take a faceplant, went right over the handlebars of his mountain bike. And he landed right on his head without a helmet, and I said, "Boy, that will sure knock 1982 right out of the old memory banks." And I started to get a little nostalgic, I started to think, "Hey, I think back on those years. Lemme make a little peace." You know, the battles between us, the feuding and fussing, it just rings right off of your ear after a while. I made a call and I said, "Let's be at peace." And later on, Ed says, "Let's go one better, let's do a song."

KL: Wow.

EVH: Turned into two, and now we're doing two videos, and who knows?

DLR: Sky's the limit.

KL: So, everybody's happy, I like that. Of course, you're not REALLY happy. So, how about the show tonight, did you see anybody that knocked you right out?

MA: You know the audience, they knock us out.

DLR: Dennis Miller.

MA: Oh yeah, he's great.

AVH: Smashing Pumpkins, they're great.

EVH: That Weird Al, Nirvana thing, they're great.

DLR: Charlize Theron, she's absolutely great! I wouldn't mind getting next to her.

KL: So, welcome back, it's great to have you back, let's go the arrival hall and see what's going on there.

* * *

"DreamWorks East-Miky Lee Hitches Her Star to Hollywood's Red-Hot Trio," _Fortune_ , October 28, 1996 **  
  
**While LG and Samsung struggle to restart broken-down U.S. hardware companies, one of their energetic compatriots is cruising fast down the soft lane. Miky Lee, a Korean heiress who recently persuaded her family company to invest $300 million in DreamWorks SKG, the most anticipated startup in moviedom, is betting she can turn food processor Cheil Jedang into an Asian entertainment colossus. Says Lee, 38: "This is not a dead-end investment but the beginning of our own new business in Korea."  
  
Lee gets distribution rights everywhere in Asia, except Japan, to DreamWorks' movies, but she's not stopping there. She's started a slew of ventures at home: her own film production studio, a distributor, a chain of multiplex theaters, and a record company--and she's looking into amusement parks. Lee calculates that profits will start rolling in within three to five years. It looks like a long shot to some security analysts in Seoul, where Cheil last year squeezed out a pretax profit of less than $13 million on $2.1 billion in revenues.  
  
But Lee--whose late grandfather founded Cheil as a sugar refinery and expanded it into the mighty Samsung Group--regards her bold plan as a natural extension of a venerable family business that touches the lives of virtually every Korean. Says she: "We breathe with consumers." Synergies she sees include having some of the 130,000 retailers of Cheil foods sell videos of movies and putting film characters on packaged-food labels. And though her family inherited only the Cheil business, not all of Samsung, her pockets are deep: Cheil's stakes in Samsung companies are worth a total of around $1 billion.  
  
Lee seems well equipped to sense the tastes of an increasingly affluent younger generation of Asians. A brainy cosmopolitan, she was born in Knoxville, Tennessee, where her parents were studying. She grew up in Korea and earned degrees from the elite Seoul National University and Harvard. In her travels she developed a passion for movies-both as a business and as a potent means of communication.  
  
In late 1994, while working as a strategic planner for Samsung Electronics in New York, she learned that DreamWorks was looking for investors. One meeting with founders Jeffrey Katzenberg, Steven Spielberg, and David Geffen sold Lee. And the Hollywood power trio liked her energy and ambition; Katzenberg called her "awesome." Samsung, however, didn't share her enthusiasm for investing $900 million in a movie startup, especially after the costly Hollywood misadventures of Japan's Sony and Matsushita. But once Paul Allen, co-founder of Microsoft, put in $500 million, Lee decided that Cheil could afford to put up $300 million itself.  
  
Lee thinks she can avoid the disasters suffered by the Japanese. The crucial difference, she says, lies in her U.S. partners, "who know what they are doing and are extremely good at it." She also points out that while the Japanese invested in existing companies, "this is a startup, so there aren't any bad habits or old problems." In that, she's more fortunate than her compatriots at AST and Zenith. ****

* * *

“Eruptions,” by Steven Rosen, _Guitar World_ , December 1996 **  
  
**One of the first things you notice upon entering the maintenance room of Edward Van Halen's 5150 complex is a series of five Polaroid snapshots, arranged vertically along the edge of a doorway. Four of these depict Edward sitting atop a 5150 combo amp, grinning aimlessly, as if the photographer was simply testing the settings on the camera. The fifth picture captures the band--Edward, brother Alex, Michael Anthony, and Sammy Hagar--in cozy, smiling camaraderie, their arms draped around each other's shoulders. Most striking about this print, however, is the fact that someone has plunged a yellow push pin through Hagar's face. The perfect placement of the pin indicates the deed was about as accidental as the assassination of Lincoln. Now this is nothing but bad Van Halen voodoo, mean mojo stuff--an act of venom and doom.  
  
By now, only the brain dead are unaware of the changes that have rocked the Van Halen camp. Singer Sammy Hagar is gone, his solid gold locks nothing but a memory. David Lee Roth, absent over a decade, returned to appear on a pair of new tracks available on the band's _Best of Volume I_ greatest hits package, the band's first such compilation ever. Back on September 4, at Radio City Music Hall, they went to confirm feverish speculation that the flamboyant singer would rejoin Van Halen, leading to the cheers of fans everywhere, marking what might be the most highly exciting reunion in a year that has seen The Eagles do additional dates to their Hell Freezes Over Tour, Journey release their first album in a decade, the original lineup of Kiss go back on tour with full makeup, and even the Sex Pistols, with original bassist Glen Matlock, come back for their so-called Filthy Lucre Tour. Of course, Eddie says it’s not completely wine and roses in their camp.  
  
“We're from different planets; we don't communicate,” says Eddie of Roth. “We just don't see things the same way. I'm not saying that he's a bad person at all--I actually fuckin' love the guy. You just got to know how to deal with things, especially have the right support around you.” And that actually ties in with the upheaval around Hagar. “I did not have that feeling, that support, at the end, with Sammy. Like Dave, I don’t hate him at all or think he’s a bad person, and we also come from a very different place. But at the end, he was getting to be more trouble than he was worth. He was just sucking the life out of me, and I don’t need that kind of negative energy around me.”  
  
Van Halen, who despises the politics of the music business as much as Roth revels in it, has only recently emerged after having endured a romp through hell without sunscreen. In an intimate conversation which initially began at his Hollywood Hills hideaway and three days later ended with a frantic game of phone tag, he shared with _Guitar World_ his view of Van Halen's massive implosion, the too public upheaval that led to the ousting of one lead singer and the resurrection of another. He also talked about the band's recent greatest hits album, a work which in its depth reveals just how much rock's premier guitarist matured as an artist and as a man, in the course of 20 spectacular, if turbulent, years.  
  
GW: These last few months have been interesting for the band, some bad, some good.  
  
EVH: Yeah, the last three months have been a full plate -- and a few desserts I didn't plan on ordering. There have been a variety of conflicts brewing between Sammy and the band since I quit drinking on October 2, 1994. Then things really came to a head when we began work on the soundtrack to the movie _Twister_. It got so bad that I actually started drinking again to calm myself.  
  
GW: What were some of the more nagging issues?  
  
EVH: Well, in the last couple of years Sammy went through a lot of changes. He divorced his wife of 23 years and, possibly because of that, he stopped being a team player. He was especially irritated by the fact that I began to get involved with the lyric writing, Sammy would say, “You never complained about the lyrics before!” Well I wasn't sober before, and I wasn't even listening to the lyrics! It's not like I suddenly wanted Sammy to be my puppet or anything, but once in a while I would take issue with a specific lyric or line. For example, I always hated the words to “Wham, Bam Amsterdam,” from _Balance_ , because they were all about smoking pot-they were just stupid. Lyrics should plant some sort of seed for thought, or at least be a little more metaphorical.  
  
GW: So you really began to have problems with Sammy around the time you recorded _Balance_?  
  
EVH: I'd say that we actually had problems on every album except for _5150_. Sammy wouldn't even work with (producer) Andy Johns on _For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge_ ; he demanded to work with Ted Templeman, because Ted lets him get away with everything. Then, like I said, things got really ridiculous when we started working on the music for _Twister_ , Alex had called up the director, Jan De Bont, to ask him how closely he wanted the lyrics of the song that became “Humans Being” to be related to the movie's context, De Bont said “Oh, please don't write about tornadoes. I don't want this to be a narrative for the movie.” So we put him in contact with Sam, who called me and said, “I had a great conversation with De Bont and everything is cool.” Then - maybe two seconds after I got off the phone with Sammy -- De Bont was like, “Uh, Sammy is a little strange. I kept telling him that he shouldn't write any lyrics about tornadoes, but he still kept insisting that I fax him tornado-related technical jargon. Does Sammy just want to learn about twisters for his own personal reasons?” I said, “Beats the hell out of me.” And so what does Sammy come back with? “Sky is turning black, knuckles turning white, headed for the hot zone.” It was total tornado stuff! Not only did Alex tell him not to do that, but the director of the fucking movie told him, “Do not write about tornadoes.” But when I told that to Sammy, Sammy insisted otherwise, that De Bont loved the idea and was supporting him, the complete opposite of what the man himself told us! The situation with Sammy was so bad that I had to warn Bruce (Fairbairn) not to let him know that I had come up with the title and the melody, because if he found out that he would have completely turned off. Whenever I suggested something to Sammy, he would just stop talking to me.  
  
GW: There were a lot of rumors circulating that Sammy was unhappy with the band because he felt he was being forced into projects he didn't want any part of.  
  
EVH: Sammy was dead against the Greatest Hits package because he was afraid it would lead to comparisons between him and David Lee Roth. He even said, “Bands that put out compilations become dead bands, this will kill the band.” I said, “Wait a fuckin' minute, Sammy. This band has been putting out records for 20 years and never put out a greatest hits-but you already have two of them ( _Best of Sammy Hagar_ , 1992; _Unboxed_ , 1993), and another one that came out earlier that was technically unauthorized, but you didn’t stop it.” It just goes to show that, in his mind, he was always a solo artist--once a solo artist, always a solo artist. He was only into being in Van Halen for the prestige of it.  
  
GW: Sammy has said he didn’t want to do _Twister_ in the first place, that you were supposed to have the year off, about how his new wife was going to give birth and he didn’t want to miss it.  
  
EVH: It was going to be that way, but Ray (Danniels, manager) had gotten the word from Warner Bros. and Universal about the movie, that we should look at it. Alex and I went to see a workprint and liked it, and we were talking about doing an instrumental for it. Ray then suddenly said, “It’d be even bigger if it was a band thing, let’s get Sammy onboard.” I was like, “Ray, Sammy’s in Hawaii, waiting to be a dad again, he’s not going to want to work right now.” But he insisted I call, I did, and Sammy was like, “Sure, no problem! Sounds fun.” Then he got there and immediately starting bitching about how wrong it was and he shouldn’t be here. And I’m screaming inside, “Then why the fuck did you say yes?!”  
  
GW: What was Sammy's reaction when you started working with Glen (Ballard, producer for an attempted second song for _Twister_ and the new Roth cuts on _Best of Volume I_ )?  
  
EVH: We had several band meetings with Sammy where we told him that if he wanted to continue with Van Halen, he had to stop running around doing all his solo shit and become more of a team player--and that might involve collaborating on a lyrical level. He said “No problem.” We had another meeting to reiterate that after the premiere of _Twister_.  
  
So right after that, we began working on “Between Us Two,” because we thought it had amazing potential. Sammy called Mike one Sunday afternoon and said, “I heard that Glen has some great ideas for the song. I'm really excited”. Then he called me that evening to give me his fax number so I could fax over Glen's lyrics. And then suddenly, I'm in the middle of giving me the number, and he started yelling and screaming at me: “This is a fucking insult! I ain't gonna sing someone else's bullshit!”  
  
I was totally startled like, “Wait a minute, we discussed this on length on two occasions. We didn't spring this on you man.” Finally I said, “Okay, forget the new lyrical treatment, but at least come down, take another pass at the performance and change a few lines.” He just answered, “Yeah, well, whatever.” That's when I finally put my foot down, I said, “Sammy, if you're not here at the studio by six o'clock tomorrow, don't ever bother coming back.” The next day, he showed up like nothing had ever happened--like he hadn't yelled and screamed at me. Did he think I was some idiot who didn't remember what had happened the night before? I'm sober now dude.  
  
Glen and I were sitting there, working on the song, and the opening line was something like, “I want to see you/I want to know who you are”--kind of _Dark Side of the Moon_ vibe, the premise being, “I want to touch your soul, I want to get to know you.” Then Sammy decided to change it to some shit like, “I can't see your diamond ring/through your shining star.” I was like, “Sam, please, Glen's got some great lyrics right here, just go with them.” His only reply was, “If I thought those lyrics were better I would sing them. Besides, I have an eight o'clock plane to catch.” And he just left. Glen and I were dumbfounded. Then Glen asked me, “How long has this been going on?” I said, “Longer than I'd care to mention.” So anyway, that was the last straw. I called Sammy a bunch of times, and when he finally returned my call, I said, “Sam, if you want to make another record or do another tour, you've got to be a team player. Van Halen is a band--not the Sammy Hagar show, not the Eddie Van Halen, Alex Van Halen, or Michael Anthony show. We should be called Piss for all I care, but we are a band.” So I went over this shit like 11 times with him, and he finally said, “Yeah, goddammit, I'm fuckin' frustrated. I want to go back to being a solo artist.” And I said “Thank you for being honest.” We ended hanging up like everything was cool because it was all out in the open. He'd admitted that he wanted to do solo stuff. And I said “Well, you can't be in a band and do that, too, so see ya...” Then of course he went around saying he was fired, and that I’d been plotting to get Dave behind his back, and all this shit. I didn't fire him. He just quit. To put it simply: Dave and Sam both suffer from L.S.D.--lead singer disease. Except Dave never lied.  
  
GW: Speaking of David Lee Roth, how did he come back into the picture?  
  
EVH: Well, as I was tearing my hair out with Sammy during the _Twister_ sessions, I happened to be talking to Kurt Cobain, as part of making amends for a moment I’m not proud of, when I was smashed and went to see Nirvana backstage at The Forum three years ago. Kurt accepted my apology, we got to talking about shit, and I just let out all my frustrations. Kurt actually told me to fire Sammy and get Dave back. I could see his logic, but I said, “I won’t leave Sammy out in the cold. I’ll give him another chance.” You know how that went.  
  
Now Dave happened to call me around the same time Sammy quit, because Warner Bros. notified him that Greatest Hits was going to come out, and he had a few questions about the packaging and other details like that. I told him, “Dave, I really don't know yet. I'll call you mid-week and let you know.” We were on the phone for about 45 minutes, and we apologized for things we had said back in high school--even junior high. It was probably one of the best conversations I've ever had with him. Especially since, as long as I've known him, we were never really friends. but band-wise, it just seemed to work.  
  
A few days later, instead of us calling David with the information on the CD. I decided to drive over to his house. I told him that the basic idea was to do a single CD that would be half of the stuff we did with him and half the stuff we did with Sammy. That was another big problem we had with Sammy, by the way: he wanted to have more of his songs on the Greatest Hits than Dave's.  
  
GW: What was it like going to Dave's house for the first time?  
  
EVH: We just had a great time bullshitting as friends. We hung out for about three hours and smoked some cigars. It was only about two weeks later when I realized that the only new track that we had for the Greatest Hits was “Humans Being,” that I came up with the crazy idea of having Dave sing on a couple of new songs. We thought about it for a couple of days and said, “Yeah why the fuck not?” So I called up Dave and said, “Would you be interested?” And he said “Sure, I'm not doing anything.” I was very clear that, at least for the moment, he was not in the band--that it was just a project. What I wanted to do was write five new songs and pick two out of those five. We had a bit of difficult time because we wrote a song for him that he didn't particularly care for. It wasn't up his alley. So we got past that and Glen Ballard and I sat down with Dave, and I okayed with him all this new material I had. Eventually we narrowed down to this pop song, “Me Wise Magic,” and a shuffle, “Can't Get This Stuff No More,” with a “Panama” sort of groove. “Me Wise Magic” has a line in it, “I know what you're thinking,” which Dave felt uncomfortable with. He said, “That bit sounds so angry; it's just not me. People want to hear Dave sing.” But I thought it was majestic; it takes you on a roller coaster because there are so many changes. I nicknamed it “The Three Faces of Shamus,” because there is that first low part, the high part, and then the chorus. All three have completely different vibes going on. At first he wasn't into that one at all. A week later, I was still playing him songs when finally he said, "What about the first one?" So, finally, he came around and realized that it wasn't as dark and angry as he originally thought. We did have a lyrical treatment from Glen and we also had Desmond Child on standby to help with lyrics, but Dave insisted on doing it himself, and he got it. During the process, Dave and I were really becoming good friends. In my heart I really wanted to believe that he had changed a bit. We worked and we worked and he actually thanked me for hanging in there with him. It was a struggle to find anything that would inspire him and that he could connect to. Finally, we came up with the other song, and Glen suggested the title and its premise. Dave came up with the lyrics, and it worked. Dave said, “Thanks, because anyone else would have probably thrown up their arms and said fuck it.” And I said, “Well, you're a trooper, however long it takes and whatever. It's all about making it a good song. There's no time frame here; it doesn't have to be done tomorrow. I just wanted to find something you liked, and I'm glad I found one.”  
  
GW: So the two of you were able to put all of your past acrimony behind you?  
  
EVH: Yeah, it was really something. Then, after finishing the tracks, we began to seriously think, “Can we do this again?” Now, all the while, I’ve been saying, “baby steps. Let’s take it one step at a time.” I mean, when he wasn’t technically back in the band yet, he was already talking about “Oh, this will be great when we go on tour,” and I had to remind him, “Dave, we don’t even have one song yet, and you’re talking about a tour! Don’t put the cart before the horse, especially if the horse doesn’t exist yet!” I also told him, “If we do a tour, we’ll have to write and record a whole new album first.” I actually even talked a little bit about this with Kurt, and he actually helped a lot, tell me how to broach this, how to get Dave to see reason. I won’t go into all the boring-ass details, but suffice to say it worked. We did the VMAs, and it was a really great experience. Dave and I may not necessarily be friends, fully, but we’re more than we ever were back in the ‘70s and ‘80s, and we’re set to make a new album and do a summer tour. And I can tell that Dave has changed in some ways, not in others, but it's enough for now, and that maybe I shouldn't expect too much in that regard and be disappointed when it doesn't line up exactly.  
  
GW: Who chose the tracks for the _Best of Volume I_?  
  
EVH: Ray and Al came up with a list and I just looked at them and said, “Yeah, fuck, I don't care.” Because there's a second volume ready to go. There are a ton of other songs that people get pissed about when we don't play them live.  
  
GW: In previous interviews, you've said that you didn't want to do a greatest hits album.  
  
EVH: I changed my mind. What's wrong with that? Valerie (Bertinelli, Edward's wife) is always on the Internet, and for a lot people out there, their first exposure to the band was _Balance_. And when they find out we have 10 other albums, they're not gonna go out and buy 'em all. So why not put a package together so they can at least get a taste and a history of the band? Next year will be the 20th anniversary of the recording of our first album, so I don't see a problem with putting out a greatest hits record--not as long as the next record we make is great.  
  
GW: What gear setup did you use on the most recent tracks?  
  
EVH: The meat and the beef of the sound is the 5150. And I did experiment with some new stuff--I used a talk box on “Can't Get This Stuff No More,” but Matt Bruck (Van Halen's guitar tech) actually ran it for me. My mouth wasn't big enough or something because when I tried it, it just sounded like a wah-wah. I played and then we added it later with Matt doing it through a re-amp or whatever you call it. On “Me Wise Magic” I'm using the prototype Peavey with the Steinberger tremolo.  
  
GW: During the period when you were in vocalist hell, before Dave came back, did you think about maybe putting together a solo album of some sort?  
  
EVH: No, not at all. A long time ago, when Dave totally took us by surprise and just quit, we didn't audition anybody. It was Sammy and that was it. We were just plain excited to have somebody who was into singing. Actually, my plan at the time--and I wouldn't necessarily have called it a solo record because Mike and Al would have played on it--was to get Mike Rutherford (Genesis), Pete Townshend, Phil Collins, and Joe Cocker, all of whom I had talked to. I had written “Right Now” back then and I wanted Joe Cocker to sing on it. It would have been fucking great. That's what I wanted to do, write a record where I did all the music and had a different singer on each song. Logistically, it would have been a nightmare--people on tour, contractual agreements, companies pissing and moaning--and we'd probably only be finishing it now. It would have been fun. Hopefully, in the future I'll still be able to do that.  
  
GW: Looking at the _Best of Volume I_ , which provides sort of a capsule view of what Van Halen has done, makes me thing: Did you have any sense 20 years ago of the volume of music you would create?  
  
EVH: Believe it or not, since I've gotten sober I don't think I've done shit. I don't think I've done anything. I feel like I'm just starting.  
  
GW: You say you feel like you've just begun, but the truth is, Van Halen is one of the few guitar-driven rock bands to still exist here in the ‘90s. Most of the other bands who were around and thriving in the ‘80s are gone.  
  
EVH: Let's just call us a rock and roll band. We just are what we are. I don't how to explain it, we survived punk the first time around, we survived disco and grunge and rap and whatever. We're a rock and roll band and we just do what we do.  
  
GW: Do you have any opinions about the other guitar-driven groups out there-Metallica, maybe, or Soundgarden or any others?  
  
EVH: I don't really listen to people. I like singers. I like Peter Gabriel, I love Chris Cornell, I like Tori Amos, Gavin Rossdale, the guy from Bush. I think Kurt Cobain is fucking incredible. And Billy Corgan I like.  
  
GW: When you did that cover story with Corgan ( _Guitar World_ , April 1996), did you feel a connection with him?  
  
EVH: Oh yeah, because he's probably one of the few citizens of the alternative nation, or whatever you want to call it, that admits Van Halen was an influence. Everyone else says Kiss. I mean, give me a fuckin' break. If they play guitar, they must have heard Van Halen somewhere down the line. I just don't see Kiss being a guitar-inspiring type of thing. I mean, I'm not putting Kiss down at all, I love Gene (Simmons), he helped us out in the beginning and without him we probably wouldn't be where we are. But to say Ace Frehley was the reason you picked up guitar?  
  
GW: Do you worry at all about what your audience will think about the changes in the band?  
  
EVH: No, because you cannot please everyone all the time. No matter who sings, someone is not gonna like it. I'm sick and tired of being controlled, and I don't want to control. I just have so much music and I want to put it out. Despite the history with Dave, we work very, very well together. We'll let the Greatest Hits run its course and then we'll put out the new shit. I don't care. If it touches one person, then it's great. I don't care if it sells millions, I don't care if it sells a tenth of the records we've sold. It's not about sales-- it's for the love of music.

* * *

"Marvel Falls Into Clutches Of Chapter 11," Wire Services, _Los Angeles Times_ , December 28, 1996

Spider-Man and Captain America are a powerful duo, but even they couldn’t muster enough strength to save parent Marvel Entertainment Group from the clutches of Bankruptcy Court.

The nation’s largest comic book purveyor, also the No. 1 producer of trading cards, succumbed Friday and filed for Chapter 11 protection from creditors. The underlying trouble is that collectors who bought with abandon in the late 1980s and early ‘90s have lost their appetite for comics and cards.

Further complicating the plot, which has more twists than a Spider-Man serial, is a web of intrigue pitting Marvel owner Ronald Perelman against bondholder Carl Icahn, both renowned takeover artists.

Marvel is proposing a reorganization that leaves Perelman in control and makes no concessions to Marvel bondholders.

Perelman’s Andrews Group Inc. and certain banks will spend $525 million to bail out the money-losing publisher. Marvel plans to boost revenue by producing TV shows, movies, video games and restaurants that feature its characters.

Perelman, who owns about 80.2% of Marvel, last month threatened the company’s bondholders--who include Icahn--with the bankruptcy filing unless they approved the reorganization plan, which massively dilutes the public stockholders’ ownership of the company.

Eight shareholder lawsuits have been filed seeking to block the plan. The suits claim that it allows Perelman to receive newly issued Marvel shares at a steep discount.

“We would have preferred to recapitalize Marvel without having to seek the aid of the court, but the actions and positions taken by the bondholders prevented that approach,” said Scott Sassa, Marvel chairman and chief executive.

“The failure to reach agreement with bondholders, many of whom are so-called vulture investors who recently accumulated the bonds, delayed Marvel from moving forward with its plan in a timely fashion,” he said.

Under the plan, Andrews would pay about 85 cents each for new Marvel shares. Bondholders would be hurt by the dilution because Marvel stock backs $900 million in bonds.

Shares closed at $2.375 on Thursday, down 12.5 cents. Trading in Marvel stock was halted Friday on the New York Stock Exchange following the bankruptcy news.

Icahn, who through his High River Limited Partnership holds 25% of Marvel bonds, said it was “reprehensible” that Marvel filed for bankruptcy and “completely ignored a far more equitable alternative that had been presented and remains available.”

“It is patently clear that Ron Perelman has adopted this course to realize a windfall profit for himself at the expense of those to whom he owes a fiduciary responsibility,” Icahn said in a statement.

Perelman’s reorganization plan calls for his Andrews Group Inc. to pay $365 million for 427 million new shares of Marvel with cash or shares of Toy Biz Inc., Marvel’s profitable toy maker affiliate. The move would make Toy Biz a unit of Marvel, giving it a needed source of cash.

Shares of Toy Biz rose $1.25 to close Friday at $19.25 on the NYSE.

Marvel said that its banks agreed to provide $160 million in new funds and $100 million in debtor-in-possession financing. The banks, led by Chase Manhattan Corp., agreed to the reorganization plan. The bank group loaned about $640 million to Marvel before it filed for bankruptcy.

Perelman, through Marvel Holdings, Marvel (Parent) Holdings and Marvel III Holdings, owns about 80.2 million shares of Marvel Entertainment Group’s 101 million shares of common stock.

Some analysts said Marvel became a casualty of a power play between Perelman and bondholders like Icahn. Other analysts suggested Marvel’s problems evolved over time and have more to do with collectors losing interest in sports memorabilia and comic books.

Marvel listed consolidated assets of $1.3 billion and consolidated liabilities of about $1.2 billion in a filing in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Delaware.

* * *

Excerpt from book _Walk This Way_ by Aerosmith and Stephen Davis, 1997

**Tim Collins** (former Aerosmith manager): (In late 1990, early 1991) David Geffen was selling Geffen Records to MCA. Aerosmith still owed him three albums, and was an important asset to him, so he wanted to re-sign the band for even more. "We'll extend your deal," he said. "No bumps?" I ask. "No nothin'?" "Ahhh, give you another point." It was almost an insult. "Hey-go across the street and see what you're worth. You got an old band-a tired band. (This after _Permanent Vacation_ and _Pump_ ) You know what, I don't even know if I want to re-sign. I don't believe in you that much. You're lucky I even want to re-sign."  
  
So I called Michele Anthony. She's the daughter of Dee Anthony, who managed Peter Frampton in the '70s. I'd met her when she was an attorney at a law firm (the band and I) had used and became friends with her through (Geffen A&R man) John Kalodner. Michele was now executive vice president of Sony Music, which had bought Columbia Records, Aerosmith's old label, the year before. Michele goes, "What, are you kidding? I'd sign them _in a second_." They offered us $25 million and some other things worth $5 million more for a three-album deal.  
  
I called Ed Rosenblatt at Geffen and said, "If you match 80 percent of Sony's offer, we'll stay." Ed called me the next day and said that Geffen didn't want to do the deal. A few days later, Geffen himself invited me to lunch. He offered me 60 percent of the Sony deal. I had to say no. Eventually the waiter handed me the bill, but I refused to pay. Geffen looked at me funny, it was well known around town that he _never_ paid for lunch. "David, you invited me." "Well, ah, I don't have any credit cards." "That's your problem, David." It was my symbolic standing up to him. A few days later he called me on the phone, but he wouldn't budge. "Go make your fuckin' deal with Sony." _Slam_.  
  
So we did, it was announced in the press in September 1991. It was pointed out that Aerosmith still owed Geffen albums ( _Get a Grip,_ the compilation _Big Ones_ , and the live album _A Little South of Sanity_ ) and that the band members would be almost fifty by the time their first album for Sony came out. I knew if we could stay sober they'd be hotter than ever by then. No regrets, ever. The only thing we missed about Geffen was the smallness and intimacy we had with them before he sold the company, then ended up making millions when MCA was sold to Matsushita/Panasonic (then yet more later with the Seagram/PolyGram/Interscope deal). After that, it was no longer an entrepreneur-driven company, and lost some of its old feel.

_Tim Collins ended up fired by Aerosmith in 1996 due to psychological manipulation and triangulation of the band members, causing crises that he would swoop in to take the credit for solving._

* * *

"Securities Oddity: The Bowie Bond," by Jan Mathews, _The Washington Post_ , February 6, 1997

David Bowie, the angular British rock star, has never been afraid to try something new. His stage persona has metamorphosed from Ziggy Stardust to Aladdin Sane to the Thin White Duke, with interesting digressions along the way. He had performed with a succession of bands, from the Kon-rads to the King Bees, to the Lower Third, to Tin Machine.

Now Bowie is the first major artist to turn himself into a bond issue - payable over 10 years at 7.9 percent.

The asset-backed bond - the financial instrument that has put $55 million in Bowie's well-tailored pocket - is a device of rapidly growing popularity that already has helped banks turn home loan payments and credit card receivables into big chunks of cash. But until now no one dared to think the annual income from former hits such as "Space Oddity" or "Let's Dance" might appeal to gray-suited executives looking for stable bond investments.

The bond bonus for Bowie is $55 million immediately, instead of in installments as the records sell, and more money than record companies were offering. What he'll do with the money is unclear, but he seems to have been drawn to the deal by its tax advantages.

The reliability of the revenue stream to pay off the bondholders enabled Bowie to get a triple-A rating from Moody's and a favorable interest rate. His success could entice other artists with steady royalty payments to go to market, said David Pullman, the 34-year-old senior vice president at Fahnestock & Co. who designed the deal.

Many rock stars have outsold Bowie in the United States, but his avant-garde image and exotic musical tastes still sell an average 1 million records a year all over the planet, according to his business manager, Bill Zysblat, co-founder of the New York-based Rascoff Zysblat Organization. There also is revenue from 250 songs turned into sheet music, commercials and background music for elevators, offices, voice mail and many other uses in an age in which profit sources for art are expanding rapidly.

That predictable sales track record was crucial to the bond deal, for the institutional investors were paying for a cut of the income from Bowie's 25 pre-1993 albums and songs. Bowie is expected to sign a new $30 million record deal with EMI for future work not covered by the bonds.

When Bowie decided to go with the bonds, "I was terrified," said Zysblat, "and it isn't over yet. The bonds have to be paid off." But his fear that the privately offered securities might not attract enough interest eased when Pullman reported the financial equivalent of what Zysblat called "a line around the block."

"It just goes to show you that anything can be securitized," said Craig Moyer, senior fixed-income manager at Meridian Investment Co. in Valley Forge, PA, part of CoreStates Financial Corp.

Asset-backed bonds began as a way to help banks turn old-fashioned, slow-moving income sources such as credit card and car loan payments into big new cash sources that could be reinvested and turned into even more fees and income.

Moyer said Bowie's $55 million deal would be too small to interest most investors because they would be uncertain of finding buyers if they decided to move their money elsewhere. But, he said, he could imagine some clients who would be drawn to the deal, with an interest rate significantly above the 6.4 percent now paid by 10-year Treasury bonds.

Although Bowie is one of the most financially savvy singers in the world, with a well-chosen art collection and a deep appreciation of market trends, the asset-backed bond market was still new to him. Zysblat said that when he first broached the subject with his client, "he kind of looked at me cross-eyed and said, What?' "

Pullman's Structured Asset Sales Group, until last month a division of Gruntal & Co., specializes in finding new kinds of assets to turn into bond deals. Pullman suggested the Bowie bonds to Zysblat a year ago, and their discussion grew serious last fall.

Unlike most singer-songwriters, Bowie had kept control of his copyrights and record masters, and the distribution license for his first 25 albums was due to expire in June. He could have signed a new deal, with a substantial advance, but Pullman said he thought he could get more more money upfront through a bond sale.

Zysblat agreed to see how big an advance the record companies were offering, while Pullman tested the feasibility of a bond sale. When they met again, Zysblat said, "his numbers were bigger than my numbers."

Asked why Bowie wanted so much cash and was so willing to accept the risks of a new venture, Zysblat declined to be specific. Getting so much money in one lump sum increases Bowie's opportunities to invest, he said, and there are tax advantages. Bowie's principal residence is a $3.4 million, 640-acre estate in County Wicklow, Ireland, a noted tax haven, where he lives with his second wife, the supermodel and actress Iman. Zysblat hinted that Bowie may be planning to move to a country with fewer tax loopholes, and saw advantages in taking the money while he was still an Irish resident.

Record companies who see profits in turning their backlists of CDs and songs into asset-backed bonds have been asking Zysblat for advice, he said. "I tell them I'm not in that business," he said, "but maybe I will be."

* * *

"A Presidential Affair," by Bernard Weinraub, _The New York Times_ , March 23, 1997

A recent leak from a source inside the White House says that President Clinton has been committing an extramarital for some time, around late 1995 or early 1996, and it went on for some time. According to a woman named Linda Tripp, a close friend of hers, a young intern, Monica S. Lewinsky, has been engaged in an affair with Mr. Clinton, known to have consisted of, but not necessarily limited to, oral sex.

Ms. Tripp, who ended up befriending Ms. Lewinsky, says that she was told about the affair quite regularly in conversations together, and Ms. Tripp admits that she has been recording their phone calls to make tapes. Apparently, she made the recordings and was in talks with several different parties, including Internet gossip columnist Matt Drudge, _The Washington Post_ , _The National Examiner_ , and even the Office of the Independent Counsel, headed by Kenneth W. Starr, to determine whether the tapes could be used as the basis of a story and/or a new lead in the Independent Counsel's ongoing investigation of Mr. Clinton. However, a courier holding copies of the tapes ended up in _Times_ offices, "by mistake", according to Ms. Tripp, and she considered herself obligated to go on record here simply because of the circumstances.

Calls to Ms. Lewinsky to comment on the story went unanswered. Likewise, Mr. Clinton and his legal team did not comment about the report, and the White House has also refused to comment, but promises that "We will comment when the picture becomes clearer." Recent polls of Mr. Starr's investigation have led to a solid majority against continuing, with two-thirds of respondents saying it is time to close up shop.

* * *

"President Clinton Admits Affair Allegations, Offers Contrition," by Michael Kelly, _The_ _Washington Post_ , March 26, 1997

In a press conference early this morning, President Clinton admitted that reports in the media of him having an extramarital affair with a young White House intern were true. The intern in question, Monica Lewinsky, had begun during the middle of the 1995 federal government shutdown, and had blossomed into "brief and sporadic moments of impropriety on my part." He went on to state that the affair had been physically over for the last few month, but that he felt he had no choice but to get out ahead of the matter and admit to the reports "before things got out of control."

The President was referring to the fact that reports of the affair broke out three days ago in a _New York Times_ article called "A Presidential Affair", and had been leaked to the paper by a woman named Linda Tripp, a friend of Lewinsky's to whom she had confided in regarding her sexual relationship with the President. During his statement, President Clinton said, "I am deeply sorry and ashamed of my behavior, because I know better, and there is no excuse for what I did. I apologize to Ms. Lewinsky, for putting her potentially in harm's way and for doing what I have done. I apologize to Hillary and Chelsea, for hurting them. And I apologize to all of you."

While there were certainly scattered mutterings from the Republicans, calling the President's behavior "quite shameful and degenerate", as House Speaker Newt Gingrich put it, for the most part, they didn't quite seem to register with the general public. Furthermore, there are unsubstantiated reports that Independent Counsel Kenneth W. Starr had planned to use the Lewinsky affair in questioning in a legal subpoena (presumably should the civil lawsuit by Paula Jones for sexual harassment end up going forward while Clinton is in office if the Supreme Court rules that way), and it could have provided ample grist to trap the President on charges of perjury.

As to the public as a whole, they seem more than eager to move forward and focus on other matters. A recent Gallup poll showed that 83 percent of respondents wanted no further reports about the President's affair from the press.

* * *

"Gingrich Goes Hypocritical? The Extramarital Affairs Of the Anti-Cheating Proponents," by Bernard Weinraub, _The New York Times_ , April 17, 1997

After President Clinton's recent admission of having had an extramarital affair with White House intern Monica S. Lewinsky, several prominent Republican politicians called him out for his behavior. Speaker of the House Newt L. Gingrich, in particular, referred to Mr. Clinton's actions as "quite shameful and degenerate", and also was supported by the likes of Dennis Hastert and Henry Hyde, also longtime opponents of Mr. Clinton and his administration. They pointed out that the news that Mr. Clinton began his affair with Ms. Lewinsky during the November 1995 shutdown of the federal government as rich irony to take advantage of. "If the President of the United States will respond to such a situation by indulging his carnal pleasures, how can he possibly be working on behalf of all Americans?"

Around this time, however, Larry Flynt, the founder of _Hustler_ magazine, and who had been portrayed by Woody Harrelson in the recent Milos Forman biopic _The People v. Larry Flynt_ , decided to post a reward in _Hustler_ for leads and tips of extramarital affairs of Republican politicians to use to hoist them on their own petard. Mr. Flynt's gambit proved quite successful, as he soon received leads about Mr. Gingrich, Mr. Hastert, Mr. Hyde, and Louisiana Congressman Bob Livingston having had sexual pecadilloes of their own. Most notably that Mr. Gingrich had been sowing his wild oats behind the back of his then-wife, and made her sign a divorce right after surgery, when she was still under the effects of anasthesia, meaning that her signature was null and void. Mr. Gingrich angrily slammed Mr. Flynt for the reward strategy, saying, "there is no end to Larry Flynt's depravity, and how he is a darling of the Left for his behavior is truly beyond me."

Mr. Hyde also referred to his past actions as "youthful indiscretions," despite the fact that the affair had occurred when he was in his forties. Mr. Hastert released a terse press release saying, "this is not the forum to respond to these questions while engaged on the work of everyday Americans," while Mr. Livingston gave no response whatsoever.

"I expect that the four of them are quite finished," Democratic political strategist James Carville, known for his association with Mr. Clinton and also coining a phrase, "bimbo eruptions", regarding allegations of sexual misconduct against the President by the likes of Gennifer Flowers, Paula Jones and Kathleen Willey prior to the Lewinsky story, said in response. "If the people going against a sitting President for cheating on his wife are doing the same, how can they possibly continue to serve America and their own constituents. How can Republicans be taken seriously because of this? Clearly, they know that our strategy is working, and they're simply flailing about trying to avoid the inevitable."

"Mr. Carville is simply as nearsighted and off-topic as always," said Reverend Jerry Falwell, also a a famous opponent of Mr. Flynt in the past. "He and Larry Flynt are outright advocating the absolute degeneracy and desecration of the Oval Office, to further push the radical feminist, atheist, abortionist, homosexual agenda. President Clinton will receive God's judgment for his actions."

* * *

"Marvel Proposes a Merger With Toy Biz," by Floyd Norris, _The New York Times_ , April 29, 1997 **  
  
**Marvel Entertainment Group Inc., the comic book and trading card company that has been the subject of a battle for control in bankruptcy court, proposed yesterday a reorganization plan that would leave bondholders led by Carl C. Icahn high and dry.  
  
The bondholders immediately denounced the proposal, which calls for a Marvel merger with Toy Biz Inc., a toy company that has a license to produce toys based on Marvel characters, as ''an outrageous sweetheart deal for the banks and for Toy Biz insiders at the expense of Marvel's shareholders and bondholders.''  
  
But whether the bondholders can block the plan depends on bankruptcy proceedings in Delaware, where a hearing is scheduled for Thursday on the bondholders' plans to take control of a majority of Marvel stock and oust the board. The bondholders have promised to propose their own reorganization plan, but have yet to do so.  
  
Under the plan, Marvel shareholders would receive only warrants to buy shares in a new Marvel-Toy Biz combination. Marvel's secured lenders, mainly banks led by Chase Manhattan, would get cash proceeds from a new $250 million loan Marvel would arrange, a $170 million note from Marvel and all of the stock of Marvel's trading card and sticker subsidiaries, Fleer, Skybox and Panini.  
  
''This proposal paves the way for a plan that treats all parties as fairly as possible,'' said Scott Sassa, chairman and chief executive of Marvel.  
  
The Marvel war has been going on since November and stems from the unusual way that Ronald O. Perelman, the financier who controlled Marvel, financed his holdings. He sold bonds that were obligations not of the underlying company but of parent companies he controlled, and were secured by about 80 percent of the outstanding shares of Marvel.  
  
Last November, when Mr. Perelman proposed his original reorganization plan, which left little for the shareholders, the bonds plunged in price, and Mr. Icahn, best known as the former chairman of Trans World Airlines, and some other investors snapped them up. They evidently thought that Marvel was worth more than the Perelman plan indicated.  
  
That plan called for Mr. Perelman to put up cash to allow Marvel to buy the 73 percent of Toy Biz that it does not already own, in return for which he would get an 80 percent stake in the reorganized company. The bondholders would then get the old stock, which would be converted into a small minority stake.  
  
Mr. Perelman dropped that plan after opposition from bondholders, and a bankruptcy court ruling appeared to clear the way for bondholders to seize his stock and take control of the board. But that move has been stalled by court proceedings.  
  
The new plan, which Marvel said was proposed by Toy Biz, does not envision a cash infusion. But it allows anyone -- presumably the bondholders -- to make a better bid so long as that bid either values Toy Biz at $14 a share or more, or pays Toy Biz shareholders a $7 million break-up fee.  
  
Toy Biz stock yesterday closed unchanged at $10.25 in New York Stock Exchange trading, while Marvel shares rose 12.5 cents to $2.375. The latest plan has the blessings of Chase Manhattan, as well as of the Marvel board that was named by Mr. Perelman, who remains a member of it.

* * *

"Australian Native Sons Mel Gibson and Bruce Davey of Icon Bring It All Back Home" by Kim Williamson, _Box Office Magazine_ , August 15, 1997 **  
  
**Fourteen years ago, actor Mel Gibson was worried about the future of the Australian film industry. "Canada seems to have blown it. Australia could well do the same," he said. Gibson, who'd come to prominence with such Oz productions as _Mad Max_ , _Tim_ , and _Gallipoli_ , had just finished another Down Under effort, _The Year of Living Dangerously._ On the big screen, the continent had also recently produced such hits as _My Brilliant Career_ , _"Breaker" Morant_ and _The Man From Snowy River_. But Gibson feared that, fueled by success, the country's production would expand too quickly, causing a ramp-up in costs that would lead to the industry's downfall.  
  
Cut to a gray day in summer 1997. Whatever worries Gibson had about movie making Down Under seem to have dissipated like this morning's marine layer over the Warner Bros. lot, where Gibson's Icon Productions is housed in a two-level bungalow of offices. In a casually appointed suite, Gibson, as chairman and creative force of Icon, and Bruce Davey, who, drawing on his chartered accountant background, oversees the nine-year-old company's financial affairs as president and CEO, are talking about the company's future in an exclusive interview with BOX-OFFICE. And the future at Icon seems busy and bright. In February 1996, Icon announced it had signed two major-studio production deals: a continuation of its original Warner pact, in place since January 1991, plus a new agreement with Paramount, domestic home of Icon's Oscar-winning _Braveheart_. This past August, Icon entered into a three-year joint venture with Fox Filmed Entertainment to develop, produce and distribute films in Australia, using Fox's still-under-construction Fox Studios Australia in Sydney as home base.  
  
"I think it's the same as it's always been," Gibson says of Australian filmmaking today. "Pretty much just really talented people operating on a shoestring, turning out quality stuff from time to time. Per capita, there's a lot of activity down there, even compared to the film community here. It's like a drop in the ocean, and yet they manage to more than fulfill a kind of populist quota."  
  
In their yet-to-be-named Aussie venture, at the moment, just call it Mel & Murdoch, Inc., headed by leading Down Under producer Timothy White ( _Angel Baby_ , _Oscar and Lucinda_ ), the companies will work together on a yet-to-be-determined number of pictures. The films will be owned by Fox/Icon, with Fox distributing outside Australia. (Other Icon productions are copyright World Icon, an investment group originally formed to finance _Hamlet_ when no studio would.)  
  
"Our association with Fox came through _Braveheart_ ," Davey explains. "Fox took the foreign side of _Braveheart_." "When Fox started to build their studio down there," Gibson adds, "it seemed like an opportune time to get into bed with these guys that we'd had such a good experience with."  
  
But a sense of national pride was also involved. "I don't know whether Mel and I ever had the specific conversation," Davey says, "and if we didn't have it, it was most probably thought: that one day we'd like to give something back to Australia.  
  
"I think it will be fabulous," Davey adds, speaking of the entire $120 million Fox effort. "There will be state-of-the-art soundstages and TV studios and theatrical studios. The first production there is underway, they're doing the sequel to _Babe_. It's going to be great."  
  
Gibson poses a question for his partner. "It's going to take a while for it to really wind up, isn't it?" "Yeah," Davey replies.  
  
"It always takes time," Gibson adds, nodding. "When we started Icon, we were at it for about three years before we got a shot off. It just takes a long time to generate things. But this is going to be very valuable, and I think a lot of good work's going to come out of there."  
  
When it comes to discussing the specifics of Icon's involvement with Fox, the partners prove more reserved. "We have an office facility at the moment, not on the lot, but they will move," Davey says. "We have only three employees down there. They're identifying projects for us to jointly develop with Fox." As to what percentage of Icon projects will be shot in Australia, Davey says, "We can't say. After _Braveheart_ , we did nothing for a couple of years. We aren't going to make a movie for the sake of making a movie, and you've no idea whether something's going to come along." Presented with a hypothetical scenario, in which Icon would make a dozen movies between now and the year 2000, might a significant number be made in Australia? "We can only hope that that would be the case," Davey says carefully. But Gibson's response is equally interesting; almost to himself, he adds, "A dozen projects in three more years? It's possible!" He laughs, as if implying it's not probable. "The company would have to grow."  
  
Fulfilling its Warner and Paramount pacts might demand exactly that: that Icon grow. Industry reports state Icon, which has made 12 films since its 1988 launch, will make four pictures for each studio over the next three years, with Gibson starring in one, directing another, and producing two more. "You know more than I do," Davey says, prompting more laughter from Gibson. Both partners take a certain pride in not having a formal business plan. The uncertain availability of worthwhile projects is the cited reason. "The business dictates that in a lot of cases," Gibson says. "It's so fickle. You get things coming from left field and right field."  
  
"I can give you an example," Davey adds. "We did _Braveheart_ and then we did nothing for almost two years. And then we found ourselves shooting three films on three separate continents at once." (Those are _Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina_ , released stateside by Warner this past April; _187_ , an urban drama opening via Warner in late July; and the charming _FairyTale, A True Story_ , a family film Paramount has slated for October.) "Since those three films, it's been 12 months since we were physically shooting. With that sort of scenario, how can you possibly build a business plan?" Without such a plan, will Icon meet its Warner and Paramount commitments and develop fare for its Fox/Icon venture, and allow time for Gibson's extramural adventures, such as his new non-Icon thriller _Conspiracy Theory_? "You can only do your damn best, I think is the answer," Gibson says. "You might not get to four. But it won't be through lack of trying. You might get three, you might get five! You just have to keep looking all the time and developing ideas you think will work and see how they take hold."  
  
Of the two studio deals, Gibson says, "Basically, it's our call, so it's up to us to get stuff to a stage where we're happy with it." Still, as Davey says, "They all want Mel Gibson projects," exemplified by Paramount's demand for at least one action picture to star him.  
  
"You don't know what's going to work with what studio," Davey says. "It's no secret we took _187_ to Paramount first, and they passed. And Warners picked it up. And what might not work for Warners might work for Paramount."  
  
"You're a bit like the Fuller Brush man," Gibson adds. "You come to the house and you say, 'Hey, we got some of these, some of these, some of these, and these, what do you like, you like anything?' And he says, 'Yeah, the onion peeler. That's a good one.' They have to like it too. [After all,] we're not alone in this."  
  
"It's a two-way street," Davey says. "It's not going to work if they're not sending us stuff, and it's not going to work if we're not sending them stuff. And we want it to work." Or, as Gibson puts it, "You just have to keep in mind your obligations, and try not to stiff anybody."  
  
Along with its Australian and American ventures, Icon has entered a third continent: Europe. In September 1995, Icon Entertainment International was formed to handle overseas sales for Icon productions and third-party films in which the company takes an interest. The following month, it bought international rights to 20 films from the Kings Road library, including _All of Me,_ _The Big Easy_ and _Jacknife._ Located in London's Soho Square and run by former Lumiere managing director Ralph Kamp, Icon International this past fall also acquired Majestic Films, another London-based sales company, in a $10 million deal.  
  
Previously, Majestic had handled foreign rights for certain Icon titles, counting among its 220-film library Icon's _The Man Without a Face_ and _Immortal Beloved_. Despite apparent duplication between Icon International and Majestic, Davey says the two will remain separate. "We're running them side by side. I think that it's appropriate to keep Icon for Icon films. Icon, I think, has earned a certain reputation." Majestic will handle "films that we're going to finance and other people are going to go and produce." The first such production is _Saint Ives_ , a Robert Louis Stevenson adaptation being made by Ireland's Little Bird.  
  
The overseas effort was launched out of bottom-line pragmatism. "We [opened Icon International] because I figured out that what we were paying Majestic to handle our films would cover our overhead to do it ourselves," Davey says. "It then seemed prudent to try to cover the overhead of [the international] operation by library acquisitions, so that we weren't put in the position, like a lot of these sales companies are, of having to go out and find product. Once again, we don't want to make movies that we don't want to make, so you don't want to be selling movies for the sake of having to cover your overhead. Having a library is a foundation, it generates cash flow, which leaves you free to concentrate on fewer movies, and hopefully distribute them better, on the basis that less is more."  
  
Two prominent film companies that, like Icon, made studio films for which they retained the copyright are/were Castle Rock and Cinergi. Both companies, while trying to grow their libraries from the inside, eventually had to sell out to conglomerates (respectively, Time Warner and The Walt Disney Company). On the other hand, on the morning of BOX-OFFICE's visit to Icon, Wall Street sources were insisting that MGM, which like Icon has been making library deals, in its case to make itself more investor-attractive--is readying to go public via a late-1997 stock offering.  
  
Neither selling stock to shareholders nor selling out to an entertainment giant interests Gibson and Davey. "I've talked to other guys who went public," Gibson says, "and it's been like a nightmare for them."  
  
Davey agrees. "Those things are often put together by lawyers and accountants for their own reasons, and not for the benefit of the company." But wouldn't Icon love the access to virtually unlimited capital that a large corporate parent might provide? "Yes, but the interesting thing about the way we do our movies is that there is a discipline in the way that we work," Davey says. Which is this: Their sales experts define how much the market will invest in any particular production. "They come back and say, for example, 'We can raise $15 million.' So I say to my physical production guys, 'What's this going to cost me to make?' And they say, 'It's going to cost $20 million.' Well, you know it's not going to work. So you either come up with a way to make it for $15 million, or we can't do it. If someone said, 'Here's a pot of $100 million [to draw on],' people are going to lose sight of the discipline to make it work at $15 million. It's too easy to say, 'We'll just take $2 million from that hundred million.'"  
  
Icon is no stranger to making rigorous budgetary decisions, even on works that are especially dear to Gibson and Davey's hearts. A story Gibson tells about shooting _Braveheart_ illustrates the point. The production was running low on time and money. "Literally, there was a place and a day near the end of the shoot where we did rip 12 pages out of the script. And it forced us on the creative side to be creative. Because we had to find a short cut there somehow. And we came up with something better than what was there in the first place."  
  
Gibson and Davey hail from different continents, Gibson was born in Peekskill, New York, while Davey is a Down Under native, but their partnership of 17 years feels like a good one. Part of that is due to their shared Aussie sensibility; Gibson's family emigrated to Australia when he was 12, and he still maintains a ranch in the Australian Outback. As the 41-year-old has put it, "I formed my opinions in Australia."  
  
The two men's different career abilities complement each other. "I'm a fiscal imbecile," Gibson says. "But Bruce is really good at that stuff. He's got a better overview for, like, business plans and situations than I do."  
  
"The business plan that we don't have," Davey reminds him, laughing. "I think as time has gone on, Mel has exhibited this 'fiscal imbecility' of his, but he's not such an imbecile these days as he used to be." At that, it's Gibson's turn to laugh. "Vice versa: In terms of learning about creating things, I've learned a lot from Mel."  
  
"But we both get snagged," Gibson says. "Every now and then, you just stand there and you think, 'Oh, man, we've just been done over,' or 'We came out the worst end of this deal,' or `Gee, we won't do that again.' And it usually costs in some way, either financially or emotionally. We call it 'school fees,' which is a kind of good way to look at it." He chuckles. "I guess."  
  
"We're still paying them," Davey laughs. "Yeah," Gibson admits. "But we got a gold star along the way, here and there."

* * *

"SCOTUS Quashes Jones Lawsuit," _New York Daily News_ , August 18, 1997

In a unanimous 9-0 ruling, the Supreme Court ruled today that Paula Jones' lawsuit against President Clinton would not go ahead while he is in office. In the official decision, Chief Justice William Rehnquist said that there was no overriding need for Ms. Jones' civil suit to be heard against a sitting President while he is still in office. "As Ms. Jones is seeking a civil suit rather than a criminal case, there is no timetable of urgency that determines that it must absolutely be heard right now, rather than waiting for President Clinton to be out of office. Furthermore, the time for the President to have to respond and be deposed while having to deal with affairs of state is simply not ideal and could potential overwhelm with far too much to handle. The decision to have the lawsuit heard would also have established a precedent in which sitting Presidents have to deal with trivial matters and could be made to answer anything, even if it is frivolous or false. While the President is not above the law, he is also not below it."

Ms. Jones had filed a civil lawsuit against President Clinton back in 1994, alleging that she had been sexually harassed by him while still Governor of Arkansas in 1991. This affair, along with others, had been bundled as part of the so-called Whitewater affair being investigated by Independent Counsel Kenneth W. Starr, about potential improprieties by the President and First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton. This decision, compounded by an apparent trap that failed to spring when President Clinton admitted to an "improper" affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky earlier this year, effectively throttles the Independent Counsel's investigation to be solely focused on the original Whitewater scandal, and means that said investigation should wrap up quickly. With an expected result of finding no evidence of wrongdoing on the part of either President or Mrs. Clinton, this will effectively free the President to focus the remainder of his second term on matters of policy.

But does that mean that it will be all wine and roses for the Clintons? Absolutely not, because those with the bit in their teeth will simply move to a likely unparalleled degree of attacking his policy proposals, even should he manage to convince Republicans to pass them. This opposition comes not only from Republicans, but the more progressive wing of his own party, who charge that President Clinton has sold out the New Deal, and betrayed liberalism with actions such as NAFTA, his crime bill and welfare reform. ****

* * *

"WorldCom and MCI Announce $37 Billion Merger," PRNewswire, November 10, 1997  
  
 _New Era Communications Company Targets Biggest Growth Opportunities: WorldCom - A New Era Communications Company_  
  
Jackson, MS, and Washington, D.C., - WorldCom, Inc. (NASDAQ: WCOM) and MCI Communications Corporation (NASDAQ: MCIC) announced today a merger agreement creating a fully integrated communications company that will provide a complete range of local, long distance, Internet and international communications services. The merger creates a new era communications company best positioned to take advantage of growth opportunities in the $670 billion global telecommunications market. The combined company, MCI WorldCom, will have over $30 billion in 1998 revenues and joins together two of the industry's most entrepreneurial and competitive forces. The merger is expected to be accretive to WorldCom's earnings by approximately 20% in the first year after closing.  
  
The boards of directors of both companies have unanimously approved the transaction. British Telecommunications plc has also agreed to the merger. The merger agreement calls for MCI stockholders except BT to receive $51 of WorldCom common stock for each MCI share and for BT to receive $51 per share in cash for each of the Class A MCI shares it owns. Upon completion of the merger, MCI stockholders will own approximately 45% of the combined company. The merger will be accounted for as a purchase and will be tax-free to MCI's stockholders.  
  
On the basis of extensive analysis, the MCI board determined that a merger with WorldCom creates maximum shareholder value and offers the greatest number of benefits to its communications customers and employees in the U.S. and around the world.  
  
Merger Synergies  
  
Significant new areas of potential cost savings have been identified and quantified and the anticipated synergies are more than previously estimated by WorldCom. Estimates initially developed by WorldCom have been revised based on new data and analysis. WorldCom estimates that annual cash operating cost synergies of $2.5 billion are achievable in 1999, increasing to $5.6 billion by 2002. In addition, capital expenditure savings of $2 billion a year are expected in 1999 and beyond.  
  
WorldCom and MCI have agreed to expand commercial business arrangements that already exist between the two companies, accelerating the timetable to achieve cost savings. Additionally, the companies will immediately pursue commercial arrangements for MCI to sell WorldCom local services and for WorldCom to sell MCI's services.  
  
MCI WorldCom will be:

  * A formidable local competitor and the largest competitive local exchange carrier (CLEC);
  * One of the world's largest providers of Internet services;
  * The number two U.S. long distance company;
  * One of the world's largest carriers of international traffic with an expanding network and facilities in Europe, Latin America, and Asia-Pacific;
  * A leading information technology solutions provider combining world-class data networking, computing and systems integration expertise; and
  * Led by management and employees credited with having played a key role in transforming the telecommunications industry.
  * Together, WorldCom and MCI will have the capital, proven marketing strength and state-of-the-art network to compete more effectively against the incumbent carriers, domestically and abroad.



Mr. Bernard J. Ebbers, president and chief executive officer of WorldCom, said, "The benefits of this merger are compelling for the stockholders of both MCI and WorldCom -- powerful synergies and ownership in the best performing communications stock over the past decade. This merger is about growth -- value for stockholders, enhanced products and services for customers, and new opportunities for employees."  
  
Mr. Bert C. Roberts Jr., chairman of MCI, said, "Shareholders, customers and employees today are rewarded for the value they have created at MCI over the last 30 years. We are more strongly positioned now than ever before to fulfill the promise of competition and the Telecommunications Act of '96, and to capture the biggest growth opportunities emerging around the world."  
  
Management  
  
MCI WorldCom will be led by the industry's most experienced, skilled and respected management team. The management team will consist of top executives from WorldCom and MCI. Upon completion of the merger, Mr. Roberts, currently chairman of MCI, will become chairman of MCI WorldCom; Gerald H. Taylor, currently chief executive officer of MCI, will become vice chairman of MCI WorldCom and will be responsible for international operations and ventures; and Timothy F. Price, currently president and chief operating officer of MCI, will become president and chief executive officer of MCI WorldCom's U.S. telecommunications operating subsidiary. Mr. Ebbers will serve as president and chief executive officer of MCI WorldCom; John W. Sidgmore will be vice chairman and chief operating officer of MCI WorldCom and will continue his current responsibilities including European operations; and Scott D. Sullivan will serve as chief financial officer of MCI WorldCom. The board of directors of MCI WorldCom will have 15 members, eight from WorldCom, five from MCI and two additional members.  
  
"In forming this partnership with MCI, we have aligned ourselves with a management team and employees who share our entrepreneurial spirit and continue to pioneer competition in our industry," Mr. Ebbers said. "The expertise of Mr. Roberts and his colleagues will be invaluable as we confront the changing domestic and international telecommunications landscape."  
  
"WorldCom and MCI have both succeeded in removing barriers and bringing the benefits of competition to customers. In combining our unique strengths --- our agility, innovative approach and competitive skills -- we will be a new era communications company," said Mr. Roberts.  
  
Relationship with BT  
  
MCI and BT have mutually agreed not to proceed with their existing merger agreement. MCI will continue its commitment to providing customers with quality global products from Concert Communications Services. After the transaction closes, MCI WorldCom will become a non-exclusive distributor of Concert products and services.  
  
Approval Process  
  
The merger agreement is subject to the approvals of MCI and WorldCom stockholders as well as approvals from the Federal Communications Commission, the Justice Department and various state government bodies. In addition, the merger is subject to review by the European Commission. The companies anticipate that the merger will close within six to nine months.  
  
Terms  
  
The actual number of shares of WorldCom common stock to be exchanged for each MCI share owned by investors in MCI other than BT will be determined by dividing $51 by the 20-day average of the high and low sales prices for WorldCom common stock prior to the closing, but will not be less than 1.2439 shares (if WorldCom's average stock price exceeds $41) or more than 1.7586 shares (if WorldCom's average stock price is less than $29).  
  
Salomon Brothers Inc. acted as financial advisor and provided a fairness opinion to WorldCom. Lazard Freres & Co. LLC and Lehman Brothers acted as financial advisors and provided fairness opinions to MCI.  
  
MCI, headquartered in Washington, D.C., offers the industry's most comprehensive portfolio of global services. With 1996 revenues of $18.5 billion, MCI ranks as one of the world's largest telecommunications companies. MCI is also the third largest carrier of international voice traffic and operates one of the world's most advanced Internet networks. Since its founding in 1968, MCI has been a leader in bringing the benefits of long distance competition to businesses and consumers and is now leading the charge to open U.S. local calling markets to competition.  
  
WorldCom is a global telecommunications company. Operating in more than 50 countries, the company is a premier provider of facilities-based and fully integrated local, long distance, international and Internet services. WorldCom's subsidiary, UUNET Technologies, Inc., is an international provider of Internet services with over 1000 Points of Presence (POPs) throughout the United States and in Canada, Europe and the Asia-Pacific region. WorldCom's World Wide Web address is http://www.wcom.com. The common and depositary shares of WorldCom trade on the NASDAQ National Market (U.S.) under the symbol WCOM and WCOMP, respectively.

* * *

"Gary Glitter Facing Child Porn Inquiry," by Alex Bellos, _The Guardian_ , November 20, 1997

The rock star Gary Glitter last night faced a humiliating end to his 25-year career as one of the most colorful characters in pop, after child pornography was allegedly discovered at his London home. Police searched Glitter's house following his arrest at a Bristol computer store on suspicion of having indecent images stored on a machine he had brought in to fix.

Glitter, aged 53, whose real name is Paul Gadd, put out a statement last night denying he had committed any offence. A spokesman said that his 25th anniversary tour, which starts in three weeks, would not be cancelled. But if the controversy escalates, it will put any public appearances in doubt.

"The tour will go ahead as planned," the spokesman said. 'It isn't a sell-out yet but tickets are selling very well."

Officers were called to PC World in Bristol by technicians repairing Glitter's computer. Glitter, who was waiting for the fault to be fixed, was taken to Staple Hill police station and questioned. He was released without charge and bailed to be interviewed in the new year.

Police later searched the star's country retreat in Wedmore, Somerset, and his London flat, and seized videos and indecent pictures of children. His planned appearance on BBC TV's _Children In Need_ program tomorrow has been cancelled.

Glitter, a father of two, achieved fame in the 1970s for his extrovert wardrobe and glam rock hits. His career looked over by the end of the 1970s, but he managed to resuscitate it a decade later, appealing to students. He has made no secret of his affairs with young women, and has beaten drink and drug problems which drove him to two suicide attempts.

To coincide with his 25th anniversary as Gary Glitter he has a greatest hits album out next week and a new album out in March. A planned reprint of his 1991 autobiography is scheduled for that time as well. He is also starring in a film about himself, _Iloveyoulovemelove_ , which he hopes to premiere at Cannes.

* * *

"Love Conquers All," by Vincent Lovegrove, _The Sun-Herald Time Out_ , November 23, 1997

_Michael Hutchence is looking to an Australian tour to put INXS back on top and the critics in their place_

It is early evening in downtown L.A. and Michael Hutchence, bad boy of Australian rock, has just been talking movies with Michael Douglas.

INXS performed the title track in the John Travolta and Nicolas Cage film _Face/Off_. But Hutchence, in his own inimitable way, is not about to hype his chances of making it big in Hollywood. "He seems to think I could sell some popcorn," he told _Time Out_ of his meeting with Douglas. "But it's just talk at the moment."

Far more important is his attempt to rekindle the magic that once surrounded his career in music. A career that took him to the heights of filling London's 80,000 seat Wembley Stadium, and which will now see him start an Australian tour with a gig at Waves, in Wollongong, on November 25, and a couple of gigs at the State Theatre.

The venues might not sound that promising, but they could well be watershed performances for the band, nonetheless. Mostly because Hutchence believes his home country has failed to give INXS the place they deserve in the nation's music history. He maintains that, more than anyone else; including the likes of Midnight Oil and AC/DC; it was INXS who took the name of Australia and its pub-rock heritage onto the stages of the world.

They've sold 30 million albums, won Grammy nominations, won MTV awards, sold out Wembley. And still they can't get respect at home. "I'm not looking for adulation or medals, and respect will come in the end because it should. But what we're looking for is just the tiniest touch of understanding, real understanding," says Hutchence. "We've been diplomats for Australia, we're always mentioning Australia, we're always plugging Australian bands."

So what about the current crop: silverchair, Regurgitator, Magic Dirt and the rest? "Ah," he says dismissively. "The wasted angst of youth. In a couple of years, say, 10 albums of consistent music; they can come and hang out with us. It's funny, because I'm always singing their praises overseas."

There is no hiding the bitterness. Undoubtedly, the failure of the media to accord Michael Hutchence the place he believes he deserves, rankles. "This naïve presumption that someone like me hasn't got a clue what is going on, that I haven't been to a gig, a rave, a jungle club, read a book, hung out with the devil, met God, you know. It's a big life. Make a difference, lads."

Since they were high school buddies, INXS have lived together, worked together, played together, been in trouble together, grown into young men together. They have seen each other's flaws, strengths and weaknesses, helping each other overcome demons. But the past few years have seen the band go through more than their share of criticism and personal tragedy. The Farriss brothers lost their mother to a long and cruel death by cancer; their manager resigned; their record contract expired; one member experienced a divorce, another a tempestuous separation, and they were forced to change agencies.

The Australian and British music media tried their damnedest to crucify them, aided and abetted by Hutchence himself. A whole generation now know him more for his one-fingered salute to the paparazzi and his affair with Bob Geldof's ex than for anything he has sung. And Hutchence acknowledges that his "unabashed sexuality" may have held back critical praise for the band's work. But he will hear nothing bad about his affair with Paula Yates.

"If you believed half the tabloids, Paula and I are evil. But actually, if you walk down the street in England, people are fabulous to us and they understand. Generally speaking, that can also be the case in Australia. They love Paula down there. She's a single working mother who raised her own family almost single-handedly, without any financial contribution from anyone. She's a hero. She deserves a medal."

But he concedes there have been problems both abroad and at home. "For all the gung ho attitude of Australians, we're actually culturally all babes in the woods. In Australia, what I'm supposed to do is go down to the pub .. and I do go down to the pub .. but when a singer like me is NOT being Jimmy Barnes, or Peter Garrett, or whoever the fuck, I'm a bit pale, and I'm a bit glam. Funny thing, really, it's the macho debit and credit bank. Jimmy understood that standing there with a bottle of vodka was a good thing. I used to drink mine before I went on stage. We're both full of Dutch courage. But remember, I was just more overtly a funky white boy, a little fey it seems. But Jimmy and I could do one of those 'buddy' movies. He's a great friend. We could have Peter Garrett as the Samoan lawyer like in _Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas_. Perhaps silverchair could be the unwashed help."

Kirk Pengilly, whose divorce from Deni Hines came in the middle of the group's worst period, explains it was the attacks on Hutchence that sparked the idea that the group ought to get back to work. " The catalyst for bringing the whole thing back together and making the album _Elegantly Wasted_ was all the absolute tabloid rubbish I was reading about Michael and Paula, all of it rubbish, all of it misinformation. People were putting the boot in left, right and center. We had become a big target. At one point I said to myself, 'I've had enough.' Michael was working in upstate New York with Talking Heads, or Heads Not Talking as the project was called. I realized that Michael might be feeling lonely and very separate from the rest of us, so when he came on the phone, I asked, 'How are you, mate, do you feel like talking to someone?' I didn't want to impose, just put out my hand an offer help. He wanted to talk, we started talking, and that was the catalyst to start writing songs."

Despite the sophisticated veneer, there is little doubt popularity back home is important. And that another drubbing from the critics in Australia will rub salt in the wounds. Hutchence still toys with the idea of returning for good. "Can't really say for sure at the moment," he says. "Paula and I and the kids love it in Australia. Sydney's the greatest city for the 21st century. London has become very difficult. People in Australia are so real and friendly. We love it. Paula is doing TV work there. It's all very good."

Even the attacks he has suffered at the hands of the Australian media seem to be forgotten in a wave of nostalgia. "It's not just us. There's a lot of other bands copping flak down there. I've had a hard time of it during the past year, but you know what they say: love conquers all."

But will it conquer the crowd at Waves? That is the real question.

* * *

"XSive Fury: Michael Calls It Quits With Paula!", _People_ magazine, December 1, 1997

Michael Hutchence, frontman of Australian rock group INXS, has officially broken up with his recent girlfriend Paula Yates, the ex-wife of Boomtown Rats frontman and Live Aid organizer Bob Geldof. He did so via an angry long distance phone call to London, where Yates has still been living with their one-year-old daughter, Heavenly Hiraani Tiger Lily Hutchence.

Back in Australia for a 20th anniversary homecoming tour and to promote the band's latest album, _Elegantly Wasted_ , Hutchence made a phone call from his room at the Ritz-Carlton Double Tree in Sydney, to discuss where things stood between him and Yates, especially in light of persistent rumors that they were to wed in January on either Capri or Bora Bora, rumors that INXS manager Martha Troup had been consistently denying. Yates has also been continually fighting Geldof for custody of her three older daughters, Fifi Trixibelle, 14; Peaches Honeyblossom, 8; and Little Pixie, 7; Yates was allegedly also set to bring them and Tiger to Australia to spend time with Hutchence on the tour.

"Michael was in a mood that Paula had never seen before," says an insider in the Yates camp. "He'd gone from being so absolutely besotted and in love with her, to bitter and angry, absolutely venomous. He was quite hectoring and abusive, and said that it was over between them, that he was going to take Tiger and get a restraining order against Paula. She was absolutely sobbing when she hung up, and also in denial about it. I don't know what could've happened, but it just didn't seem like the Michael that either of us had known for the past two years."

Hutchence, for his part, issued a public statement that Yates was absolutely deserving of scorn. "I have lately come to realize that while I was in love with Paula, she wasn't in love with me, not truly. Apparently, she had it in her mind that she wanted to claim me, use me as a trophy, and that I've come to realize that she's a toxic, negative influence on me, making me unable to see things clearly. If I've been a negative, angry person, it's because she helped make me so, and I'm getting away from her to try and become more of who I used to be. I never should've been involved in whatever spats she and Bob Geldof have with each other, and I never wanted to break apart a loving family. I had aspirations to be a new father figure to their girls, and I realize now that it simply is not possible or proper. I apologize to Bob and I understand why he has every right to be angry with me."

Hutchence also revealed something he'd been keeping. "For the last five years, I've been suffering the effects of a bad head injury I had in Copenhagen. Helena (Christensen, supermodel and former girlfriend of Hutchence) and I were biking one night, and I had a really bad accident, hit my head. Since then, I haven't been able to smell or taste, and I've been somewhat depressed and angry since, not truly myself. I've had Prozac since then, but no real therapy, and I've done some monstrous things to my bandmates, my friends and family to lash out. I haven't fully right for a while, and Paula took advantage of that. After this tour is over, I'm going to take the time to straighten myself out, live amongst my family here in Australia, begin the process of healing. I am also hopeful that as science improves, a chance for me to regain my full senses may emerge." The statement ends with a half-joke. "Besides, I'm much better looking than Christopher Reeve, and science is moving along just for him to walk again."

Hutchence and his latest travails have occurred in the process as INXS have scrambled in an attempt to regain their former mainstream glory of the previous decade. Their albums _Listen Like Thieves, Kick_ and _X_ resulted in massive sales, radio and video rotation, and sold out concerts, including headlining Wembley Stadium in 1991. However, their followup albums, _Welcome To Wherever You Are_ and _Full Moon, Dirty Hearts_ were quite disappointing, the former for bold experimentation with world music and other textures, the latter a self-conscious attempt to copy Nirvana and other grunge and alternative acts that were all the rage with Generation X. _Elegantly Wasted_ is an attempt to straddle the line between reinvention with electronica influences and hearkening back to their classic, funk-based sounds of the '80s. The tour for the recent album has been fairly well-received, a mix of small and mid-sized venues, though not every date has been a sellout. One of the new tracks, "Don't Lose Your Head", also ended up as the end credits song to the John Travolta/Nicolas Cage action thriller _Face/Off_. The Australian dates for the tour sees the band going through a string of intimate venues and adding several songs to the setlist that their homeland audiences would be more familiar with. Hutchence is also working on a solo album that he intends to release the following year, produced alongside Andy Gill of Gang of Four and Black Grape producer Danny Saber. He also has a number of other residences, including a home in London (which ironically Geldof has moved into while Hutchence moved into Yates and Geldof's home) and a villa in the South of France, in near proximity with U2 frontman Bono, a close friend of his who also has a home there.

* * *

"Spacey Dreams of Playing Darin," by Army Archerd, _Variety_ , January 7, 1998 **  
  
**Kevin Spacey says he wants to play Bobby Darin in the upcoming WB feature. However, he sadly tells me, “They say I’m too old.” If you have a question about Kevin’s ability to sing Darin-esque, he reminds us he sings “That Old Black Magic” on the _Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil_ album “as a tribute to Bobby Darin.” Clint Eastwood asked Spacey to sing it after catching him warbling on his _Saturday Night Live_ host stint. He admits he was a bit intimidated singing on a disc along with Tony Bennett and Rosemary Clooney — and Spacey’s now costarring in _Hurlyburly_ with Sean Penn, Robin Wright Penn, Chazz Palminteri, Meg Ryan, Anna Paquin and Garry Shandling, with David Rabe scripting from his play, They’re doing it, says Spacey, on a budget of $6 million, which he says means everyone’s working for scale. “But we get great sandwiches,” adds Spacey from the Oakland (for Laurel Canyon) location. The pic has an emotional tug for him, as well as for Sean: Kevin understudied his role for the Broadway version and Sean played it in L.A. They’ve known each other since 1982. Spacey next heads to London for _The Iceman Cometh_ from March to May, then films _Ordinary Decent Criminal_ for his Trigger Street Productions banner and Icon Productions (Mel Gibson’s). Afterwards, Spacey produces “a guerrilla film”: a 10-day, 16 mm, feature, _Hospitality Suite_ by Roger Rueff, directed by John Swandeck. Then Spacey will return to star in a big studio-budgeted pic like _L.A. Confidential_ , he says, adding, “Thank goodness for Arnon Milchan.”

* * *

"Donald Trump Killed In Auto Accident," by Sharon Waxman, _The Washington Post_ , January 28, 1998

Real estate mogul Donald Trump died yesterday when his limousine collided with a 1997 Ford Pewterstrike that had been driving at insanely fast speed. Mr. Trump was promptly taken to Columbia Presbyterian Hospital, where he was found to have suffered a collapsed lung, a major concussion, several cracked vertebrae in his neck, a severed spinal cord, and massive lacerations all over his body. He was 51.

Mr. Trump was once one of the major shining stars in the 1980s. During that period, he took official control of The Trump Organization, the New York-based real estate business created by his father, Fred C. Trump, and injected a certain display of media dazzle into the once-humdrum real estate business. During Mr. Trump's public ascendancy, he was became known for projects such as the Grand Hyatt hotel, the restoration of Grand Central Station, the renovation of Wollman Rink, and the transformation of the former Bonwit Teller building into the condominium and retail hub Trump Tower, where he owned a triplex that was his primary residence. He bought the opulent Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, as a vacation home, and also bought a twin-towered condominium plaza in downtown West Palm Beach to signify a major expansion. He brought himself to massive degree of media spotlight with the publication of his 1987 autobiography-cum-manifesto _The Art of the Deal_ , where he positioned himself as a negotiator par excellence and the latest successor to the legacies of legendary captains of industry/robber barons like John D. Rockefeller, J.P. Morgan and Andrew Carnegie.

But Mr. Trump's shining facade suffered numerous cracks in short order. He soon got in a massive rift with tenants in some of his various condo buildings over rent control and their fees, which brought plenty of bad blood. His investment in the fledgling United States Football League, a spring-season fill-in for football fans waiting for the NFL season to start again in the fall, by purchasing the New Jersey Generals, ended badly when he launched an ill-advised war with the NFL by planning a move to a fall schedule, then when he could not land a television contract for such a move, filed an antitrust lawsuit against the NFL for operating as a monopoly; a suit that ended in a token victory with a one dollar fine and killed the USFL. His expansion into Atlantic City by purchasing and operating three casinos; Trump Plaza, Trump Castle, and the Trump Taj Mahal, proved a major loser as his three casinos cannibalized each other's profits, and it turned out that he had overpaid for the Taj and saddled it with too much debt that no amount of attendance could possibly overcome; a fact shown when it initially opened to record crowds, then the figures tapered off quite noticeably. He bought the Plaza Hotel, the historic and most opulent hotel in New York, at a ridiculous premium that could not possibly see a profit. His purchase of the Eastern Air Lines shuttle service, which he renamed the Trump Shuttle, was also a case of him overpaying, and despite good revenue, operated at a net loss. His West Palm Beach condo complex suffered from insufficient water and air-conditioning flow to the top as well as constant gang-related violence in its parking garage.

But the biggest dent to his reputation came during a contentious divorce from his first wife, Ivana, during which time the New York papers ran continual updates and stories almost every day. The battle started because of Mr. Trump's dalliance with struggling actress Marla Maples, whom he later married, only to divorce. During this time, Mr. Trump filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection for the Taj, only a year after it opened, due to constant cash drain. Trump Plaza and Trump Castle also underwent the same process. Mr. Trump constantly crowed that he was entering a comeback, especially in the publication of his third book, _The Art of the Comeback_ , only a few months earlier. But in truth, many had written off Mr. Trump as a has-been, a lost tycoon who had basically frittered away his image due to his imprudent spending and sexual peccadilloes. It appears that Mr. Trump's status is to be consigned to the dustbin of history.

* * *

"Battle of the Exes," by Liz Smith, _The New York Post_ , February 2, 1998

At the will-reading of Donald Trump, both of his exes, Ivana Trump and Marla Maples, are said to have engaged in quite a nasty verbal altercation over The Donald's assets, as well as to continue the old war between them regarding each other and their place in his heart.

Apparently, Ivana and Marla got into a massive shouting match and screamed expletives at each other, and even started pulling each other's hair before eldest child, Don Jr., who has succeeded his father as head of the Trump Organization, physically pulled them apart. The ailing family patriarch, Fred Trump, was said to have been hospitalized because of the stress of the event.

"There is no love lost between them, and the family is truly at each other's throats." Representatives for the family and the Trump Organization refused to comment.

* * *

"Nirvana Signs With Atlantic," _Billboard_ , February 22, 1998

Nirvana and their management team, Gold Mountain Management, announced today that the band has signed a five-album deal with Atlantic Records, for which studio albums, live albums, compilations and box sets can all be counted as fulfilling the deal. Nirvana will receive the rights to their past albums and masters with Sub Pop and DGC Records (a sub-imprint of Geffen Records, part of the MCA/Universal empire, currently in the process of buying PolyGram in the hopes of merging with Interscope Records and Geffen with it) to remaster, reissue and use however they see fit in the future, be it under Atlantic, or any future label.

"With Atlantic, we have found a great new partner for the next step in Nirvana's journey," Gold Mountain's statement reads. "We remain proud of the work and time with DGC, and will think fondly of the time and experience. But you can't stay in the past."

"I am very disappointed to hear that Nirvana felt the desire to leave us," David Geffen personally commented in response. "During our seven and a half years of association with them, we helped make Nirvana one of the most successful bands today, and we have been equitable and fair with them. Jimmy Iovine and I personally hoped they would stick around and sign with Interscope, the way Guns N' Roses have recently decided to do. But you can't force people to do things they don't want to do."

"I wish Nirvana nothing but success with their new label," Iovine said. "I would have loved to have signed them, but I have no ill will towards them."

* * *

"Disney and Fox Iron Out Details of Star Wars Prequel Trilogy Distribution Deal", PRNewswire, April 2, 1998 **  
  
**LOS ANGELES - Peter Chernin, President and COO of News Corporation and Chairman and CEO of the Fox Group, and Walt Disney Studios chair Joe Roth announced today that 20th Century Fox and Disney have entered into a far-reaching agreement with Lucasfilm Ltd. regarding distribution the next three Star Wars films, which are prequels to the original Star Wars trilogy, as well as tying up loose ends from 20th Century Fox’s original distribution of the trilogy. As with the Star Wars Trilogy Special Edition, Disney will distribute the films theatrically through their Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures division. In addition, the American Broadcasting Company has licensed the network broadcasting rights to the first of the new films, tentatively titled "Episode I." However it will then grant further repeat broadcast rights to Turner Network Television (TNT), along with the rights to the original trilogy and the two upcoming sequels to "Episode I." Fox originally had the rights, especially an owning of the original 1977 film in perpetuity, but Fox graciously waived that privilege after Disney’s 1996 purchase of Lucasfilm. In addition, Fox is granting Disney and Lucasfilm the rights to use Fox studio lots to film the remaining two installments in the new trilogy.  
  
Peter Chernin stated: "The biggest thrill of any motion picture executive is to touch greatness. At 20th Century Fox, it has been a tremendous joy to have been a part of George Lucas' groundbreaking Star Wars Trilogy. It is one of the privileges of my career to be involved, even indirectly, in bringing out the next installments of Star Wars to the world."  
  
George Lucas stated: "I will always remain grateful to the work with Fox for the original releases of the original trilogy, and they hold a place in my heart. Even as Star Wars continues to expand with its new home at Disney, I hold no bad memories of working with Fox. Peter’s gracious terms regarding distribution and allowing Fox lots to film the next two installments pleases me immensely.”  
  
The new films are Episodes I, II, and III of the Star Wars saga. Episodes IV, V, and VI - _Star Wars: A New Hope_ , _The Empire Strikes Back_ , and _Return of the Jedi_ \- were released by Fox in 1977, 1980, and 1983 respectively. In 1997, on the twentieth anniversary of Star Wars and one year into the acquisition, Disney released the Star Wars Trilogy Special Edition to theaters around the world.  
  
Roth stated: "Disney and Lucasfilm created history last year with the successful release of the Star Wars Trilogy Special Edition. We not only achieved amazing results but moreover sparked a fervor for the Star Wars movies and characters."  
  
Gordon Radley, President of Lucasfilm Ltd., stated: "Choosing the right distribution partner was a critical decision for us. Disney certainly has earned their laurels in that regard. We've enjoyed working very closely with the Disney and Buena Vista teams and their talented colleagues on the world-wide theatrical and video releases of the Special Edition."  
  
The original Star Wars trilogy told the story of Luke Skywalker, a young farmboy who became a hero in the struggle to overthrow an evil empire and had to confront one of the Empire's staunchest henchmen, his own father, Darth Vader. The new Star Wars trilogy will go back in time a full generation to reveal the origins of Darth Vader. In Episode I Darth Vader is a hopeful 9 year old boy named Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi is a brash young Jedi Knight. This first chapter in the Star Wars saga follows Anakin's journey as he pursues his dreams and confronts his deepest fears in the midst of a galaxy in turmoil.  
  
Episode I was shot in Venice, Italy; Tunisia; and Leavesden, England last summer and is currently in post-production at Skywalker Ranch and Industrial Light & Magic in Marin County, California. The film was directed by George Lucas, written by Lucas and Lawrence Kasdan, produced by Rick McCallum and stars Liam Neeson, Ewan McGregor, Natalie Portman, and Jake Lloyd. Additional cast members include Christopher Lee, Ian McDiarmid, Samuel L. Jackson, Terrence Stamp, and Pernilla August. Episode I is scheduled to be released in the United States in May 1999.  
  
The Walt Disney Company, together with its subsidiaries and affiliates, is a leading diversified international family entertainment and media enterprise with four business segments: media networks, parks and resorts, studio entertainment and consumer products. Disney is a Dow 30 company.  
  
20th Century Fox is a unit of Fox Filmed Entertainment, a News Corporation Company.  
  
Lucasfilm Ltd., a Disney subsidiary, is one of the leading film and entertainment companies in the world. Lucasfilm Ltd.'s businesses include George Lucas' film and television production and distribution activities as well as the business activities of the THX Group. Lucasfilm's feature films have won 17 Oscars and received 56 Academy Award nominations, and its television projects have won 12 Emmy Awards.

* * *

"Nirvana Launches Own Label," _Billboard_ , April 23, 1998

Nirvana has announced that they are launching their own vanity label, Exploitation Records, to help look over and administrate the albums under their current five-album deal with Atlantic Records. After fulfillment of that deal, it shall be turned into a full-fledged independent label, with which they will administer all future albums and then hope to expand with signing other artists of different genres.

"It's a real ironic name," frontman Kurt Cobain says. "It's a piss-take on the old Asylum Records label, and it's also making fun of people thinking people are being exploited. When the Atlantic deal is done, we'll use it for not only Nirvana albums, but other artists, established and not. And, just for fun, I'll record street bums, disfigured people, people considered freaks, then release limited copies of them in their hometowns, as further irony of the name, of those who think I'm exploiting these people. There'll be 500 copies of the Singing Flipper Boy from Kansas City, and so on. At the very least they, their families and friends will be happy to have an album."

The success of Exploitation Records past the Atlantic deal is not by any means a sure thing. Artists have started vanity labels before with the art of receiving (or at least getting the appearance of) independence yet within the parent label. Some have had reasonable success, like Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor's Nothing Records, whose works are distributed by Interscope, and include not just NIN's music but also includes Marilyn Manson, PIG, Pop Will Eat Itself, Prick, 12 Rounds, Einsturzende Neubaten and Meat Beat Manifesto. Others become quite disappointing, as in the case of Prince and his Paisley Park Records label when still with Warner Bros., which often became a signing only for acts that he helped start himself with very little outreach or success. Then there are others that basically only exist just for the artists themselves, like The Rolling Stones did with Rolling Stones Records, which is now shuttered.

* * *

"Pow! The Punches That Left Marvel Reeling," by Adam Bryant, _The New York Times_ , May 24, 1998

For decades, Spider-Man, the Incredible Hulk and other Marvel Comics characters have battled all manner of foes, escaping death and saving millions of lives with the help of their special powers. But all their conquests in the rough-and-tumble Marvel Universe could not prepare them for the real world.

The heroes' corporate parent, the Marvel Entertainment Group, has been drained of nearly all its strength. Revenues have fallen sharply. Profits have been replaced by steep losses. Legal combat - ooof! - has tied up the company in bankruptcy for more than a year. Last month, the New York Stock Exchange delisted Marvel, once one of its hottest stocks.

Who could entangle a pop culture icon in such a web?

Two takeover titans who are familiar characters in their own right: Ronald O. Perelman, the financier whose laser vision for spotting undervalued companies has made him one of the country's richest men, and Carl C. Icahn, the scrappy outsider who wrings value from investments by applying steel-twisting pressure to managers guilty of that most terrible of injustices - paying little heed to the wishes of their shareholders.

To be sure, Marvel has been an unlikely battleground for these crusading capitalists. As investments go, their original stakes in Marvel - about $10 million for Mr. Perelman, about $40 million for Mr. Icahn - represent pocket change to these billionaires.

But something far more valuable has been on the line at Marvel: their reputations. And neither's has been burnished by the clash. Sure, Mr. Perelman was able to extract his original investment in Marvel several times over, and Mr. Icahn certainly proved that he still knows how to make life difficult for corporate executives.

Yet today, for reasons that range from hubris to simply being outfoxed, each man in turn has been swept out of Marvel, leaving behind little of lasting value for investors, employees or comic book fans to show for their time in control.

It certainly isn't a story that either would want to see in bright colors in a comic book store.

Mr. Perelman said recently that if he were to rank his successes, Marvel would be off the list. ''Nothing comes close to this,'' he said, trademark cigar in hand.

Mr. Icahn said: ''I have framed articles of every deal I've ever done. In all honesty, this is one frame I'm considering taking down.''

Return of the Superheroes

In 1988, Marvel looked to Mr. Perelman like the kind of company he had turned around before: like Revlon, for example, which he had acquired in a hostile takeover, fueled by junk bonds, three years before. Marvel would be fun to own. Its long history suggested that the business was not just a fad. And, barely profitable, Marvel clearly had much room for improvement.

Marvel also dominated its rivals - including DC Comics, home of Superman and Batman - on the strength of its characters, whose everyday problems with school, jobs and relationships made them more appealing to young readers.

So in January 1989, Mr. Perelman bought Marvel for $82.5 million, putting in $10.5 million of his own money and borrowing the rest. And from the outset, the purchase looked like a master stroke. Interest in fantasy figures was building in Hollywood: The Incredible Hulk and Thor appeared together in a prime-time television movie; Warner Brothers was heavily promoting _Batman_ for a summer release, and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, sprung from the pages of an obscure comic book, were as ubiquitous as fleas.

Mr. Perelman's management team, led by William C. Bevins Jr., an acquisitions ace and former chief financial officer for Turner Broadcasting, moved quickly to capitalize on the interest by giving Marvel's comics an upgrade. With better paper and slicker packaging, they raised prices from 75 cents to $1 without driving away buyers. Print runs soared to fill the orders from hundreds of new comic book stores.

After just two years of Perelman management, Marvel's revenue was up 35 percent, to $81.1 million, and profits jumped tenfold, to $5.4 million.

With Marvel in fighting shape, Mr. Perelman decided to lock in his profits by selling shares to the public. The market did not seem to mind that none of the $82 million to be raised would stay at Marvel. Instead, about $50 million was earmarked for Marvel's Perelman-controlled parent companies - five times Mr. Perelman's original investment - leaving him with a 60 percent stake, and the rest would pay down bank debt. Investors lined up to buy shares, and when trading started, Spider-Man visited the floor of the New York Stock Exchange to celebrate.

In just a few months, Marvel shares more than doubled in price and then continued to ride a wave of good news about Marvel and the industry. James Cameron, known at the time for his success with _The Terminator_ and _Aliens_ , agreed to write and direct a Spider-Man movie. The ''Death of Superman'' issue from DC Comics became a national news event, lifting the entire business. And Marvel's flawed X-Men heroes captured the imagination of children across the country.

Marvel trumpeted in its 1992 annual report, published in comic book format, that it was ''a new kind of youth entertainment company - ready to take the world by storm!'' And storm it did. In July 1992, Marvel bought the Fleer Corporation, a trading card company, for $286 million. The next year, Marvel teamed up with Toy Biz, a New York marketer best known for its action figures, by trading a royalty-free license to use Marvel characters for a 46 percent stake in Toy Biz. Although it was a minority ownership stake, this transaction would eventually play a much bigger role in Marvel's future.

By the end of 1993, Marvel had bulked up at a speed that would have impressed even the Incredible Hulk, earning $56 million on revenues of $415 million. Long-term debt on the operating company stood at $250.2 million. Shares that had sold initially at just over $2, adjusted for splits, traded above $35 late that year, making Mr. Perelman's stake worth about $2.7 billion; he had spent about $300 million in borrowed money to increase it to 80 percent.

''We felt very good about the business,'' Mr. Perelman said.

The Bubble Bursts

While Marvel was taking much of the credit for expanding the comic book market, there were other powerful forces at work.

One was the mothers of America, who had played a quiet but important role through the years - pitching comic book collections as their sons grew up and left home.

That helped create a collector's market, and as interest in comics increased in the early 1990s, so did the value of rare back issues. That, in turn, fueled a speculative boom. Children and adults started buying multiple copies, particularly of special editions, betting that they might one day be worth a mint.

Ultimately, though, the speculators figured out that if everyone was stockpiling comics, the value of the books was unlikely to rise over time. By early 1994, it was clear that the bubble that had been supporting Marvel's tremendous sales growth was bursting, creating a shaky foundation for the company's expanded infrastructure. With strikes in one professional sport after another sapping fan enthusiasm, the same thing happened to trading cards, a business that, with the acquisition of Fleer, contributed about half of Marvel's revenues.

In hindsight, Mr. Perelman, a famously hands-on manager, said that he and Marvel's top managers did not realize the degree to which speculators had been driving their businesses. There were simply no statistics available, he said, from the thousands of retailers that had sprung up so quickly.

''We couldn't get a handle on how much of the market was driven by speculators, the people buying 20 copies and reading one and keeping 19 for their nest egg,'' Mr. Perelman said.

In fact, Marvel executives were waving off warnings from industry insiders as the kind of small thinking that had held back the industry in the past. And the warnings could not have been clearer.

Neil Gaiman, creator of the popular Sandman character, gave a speech in 1993 at an industry gathering of 3000 retailers, comparing the popularity of comics to the mania over tulips in Holland in the 17th century. He even accused his audience of acting immorally by selling cases of comics to children who thought they were buying collectors' items.

''You can sell lots of comics to the same person, especially if you tell them that you are investing money for high guaranteed returns,'' he said. ''But you're selling bubbles and tulips, and one day the bubble will burst, and the tulips will rot in the warehouse.''

Mr. Gaiman wasn't the only skeptic. Gerard E. Jones, who wrote as many as nine comics a month for Marvel and other publishers during the boom and has since written a history of comic books, said industry insiders enjoyed the boom time, as long as it lasted. ''But the people in the trenches were always just sort of shaking their heads over Perelman's big dream,'' he said. ''I don't think anybody outside of investor circles took any of this very seriously.''

But investors were indeed taking it seriously, and Marvel's management looked to deliver growth through more acquisitions even as the market for comic books was deflating quickly.

Between mid-1994 and early 1995, Marvel bought the Panini sticker company; two smaller publishers of comics, Malibu Comics Entertainment and Welsh Publishing Group, and Skybox, another trading card company. To improve its margins and to better market its comics at the retail level, Marvel also bought Heroes World, a regional distributor in the Northeast, in December 1994. The firm stumbled in trying to expand overnight into a national distributor, and Marvel later dismantled the venture.

By late 1995, Marvel's size had become a liability. Marvel reported its first annual loss under Mr. Perelman's watch: $48.4 million on sales of $829 million. Marvel Entertainment's debt load was $581.3 million, and it was losing market share in a shrinking industry, in part because many of Marvel's best writers and artists had left to start their own publishing companies.

Amid the pressure to pump out more titles, Marvel comics had also dropped in quality, with splashy art by inexperienced artists replacing the clever plots and dialogue that had hooked so many longtime Marvel fans.

''You had a lot of high-school, study-hall scribbles showing up as published art,'' Mr. Jones said. ''For fans, it was alienating, confusing and it left many fans feeling betrayed, that their habit was being taken advantage of.''

Through 1996, the company tried to drown out the swell of bad news with upbeat announcements of new ventures. It established Marvel Studios to get the long-awaited movies, which had been tied up in legal disputes in Hollywood, onto the screen. It was going to build Marvel Mania restaurants and establish a big presence on the Internet.

But it was too late for new strategies. Mounting losses put Marvel in violation of its bank covenants. The company needed rescuing.

And which hero volunteered to save the day? Super-Ron, wielding a plan. Mr. Perelman would merge Marvel with the healthier Toy Biz by spending $350 million for the Toy Biz shares he did not already own. In return, he would get 410 million newly issued Marvel shares, maintaining his 80 percent stake, for 85 cents a share.

Yes, that was a steep discount to the $4.625 at which the shares closed the day before his offer. But Mr. Perelman saw himself as stepping forward to rescue Marvel.

''I wanted to save the company,'' Mr. Perelman said. ''I wanted to protect the company's many constituents, including its employees and investors.''

An Investors' Revolt

But many investors were outraged. Marvel's shares quickly sank 40 percent, and bonds in Marvel's holding company, part of Mr. Perelman's byzantine financial empire, also tumbled, selling for as little as 16 cents in mid-November after trading as high as 72 cents in early October.

Onto the page leaped Mr. Icahn, who smelled an opportunity. Just as Marvel years before had met all of Mr. Perelman's investing criteria, the company now offered the combative Mr. Icahn all the ingredients of a good and profitable fight.

He had railed in the past about executives who claimed a ''divine right of kings'' to stay in control despite their management mistakes. Buying about $40 million worth of Marvel bonds, he warmed up to an analogy that he is still using today. Mr. Perelman's handling of Marvel, he likes to say, ''was like a plumber you loan money to get him started in business; then he comes in, wrecks your house, then tells you he wants the house for nothing.''

But Mr. Icahn was picking a fight with someone who had come out of the corporate raids of the 1980s with even deeper pockets than his own.

Mr. Perelman's $6.5 billion in estimated wealth earned him the eighth spot on the _Forbes_ list of richest Americans last year; Mr. Icahn's $2 billion ranked him at No. 69.

Mr. Icahn figured that if Mr. Perelman was willing to put $350 million into Marvel, it was no doubt worth more.

He quickly offered his own rescue package, one roughly the same size as Mr. Perelman's. But Mr. Perelman put Marvel into Chapter 11 bankruptcy, effectively silencing Mr. Icahn and other bondholders. With the promise of a new, $160 million loan and the support of bankers hoping to work their way out of a bad situation, Marvel expected a quick tour through the courts.

Mr. Icahn had other plans. Escalating his war of words, he said Mr. Perelman was trying to ''realize a windfall profit for himself at the expense of those to whom he owes a fiduciary responsibility.'' His rival's tactics, Mr. Icahn added, were ''unconscionable.''

Mr. Icahn noticed a weak spot in Marvel's elaborate financial structure. Mr. Perelman had put up his 80 percent share of the company as collateral for Marvel bonds. If Mr. Icahn and other bondholders could get control of those shares, they would control Marvel.

In February 1997, Mr. Icahn, with the help of the bondholders' lead lawyer, David Friedman, surprised everyone by winning the bankruptcy court's approval to take control of the stock, although Mr. Icahn fell short of also taking over Marvel's board. By March, the banks recognized that Mr. Icahn was gaining the upper hand, and they scheduled a meeting with him at the law offices of Simpson, Thacher & Bartlett in midtown Manhattan.

By all accounts, the meeting was horrendous. The bankers wanted to know Mr. Icahn's intentions for Marvel. And Mr. Icahn, who is his own bank, felt little compulsion to offer any specifics. When William C. Repko, the lead banker in the room and the managing director for Chase Manhattan's restructuring and refinance group, pointed out that the banks were owed some $700 million, Mr. Icahn quickly put a chill on the gathering.

''What are you, a comedian?'' Mr. Icahn said, according to many people in the room. ''If I wanted a comedian, I would have hired one.''

The battling continued in court. In June, Mr. Icahn won the right to replace Marvel's board, effectively severing Mr. Perelman's ties to the company.

Now Mr. Icahn was chairman of the board and deeply engaged in Marvel's operating strategy. He brought a longtime Marvel executive, Joseph A. Calamari, out of retirement to run the company, and was constantly calling him to brainstorm. ''He had hundreds of ideas every week,'' Mr. Calamari said. One suggestion: that Marvel finance its own movies.

Mr. Icahn also tried to use the special voting powers of Marvel's shares in Toy Biz to take over Toy Biz's board. But to his chagrin the court ruled that, by taking over Marvel, he had triggered a change-of-control clause that evaporated the shares' clout.

Toy Biz, which had its royalty-free license to make toys based on Marvel characters and was partly owned by Marvel, also wanted to run the company. Toy Biz, the banks and Mr. Icahn, in a variety of combinations, all came close to striking a deal over a reorganization plan.

Last October, Mr. Icahn appeared to have an agreement with the banks, but they were enticed at the last minute by a proposal from Toy Biz that offered them better terms. Specifically, its plan would give the secured creditors the Panini sticker business, plus $230 million in cash and about 40 percent of the stock in a combined Toy Biz and Marvel. Mr. Icahn sued Mr. Perelman, Chase and Toy Biz, contending that ''collusive conduct'' had hurt the company.

In December, almost a year after Marvel filed for Chapter 11, the court appointed a trustee to run the company, hurtling Mr. Icahn into a distant universe, somewhere near the one occupied by Mr. Perelman. With his purchase of some bank debt, Mr. Icahn had invested a total of about $70 million in Marvel.

In February, Toy Biz put forward a modified version of its plan supported by many of Marvel's creditors. And while court approval of that deal has been delayed by further legal wrangling, it still appears likely to win. (Marvel's trustee supports it.) Another company could put forward its own offer, but the most likely suspects - including movie studios hungry for characters on which to build Batman-like franchises - have so far been turned off by the uncertainty and the competing legal claims.

''It's a shame,'' Mr. Friedman said, ''how a very small number of people couldn't get along and cause a pretty decent company to fall apart.''

Signs of Battle Fatigue

After the Incredible Hulk finishes one of his shirt-ripping growth spurts, he is so sapped of energy that he has to rest quietly a while before he can rise up again.

Much the same has happened to Marvel in the last decade, and it is only recently, after courtroom battles drained it of momentum, that the company is showing signs of life.

Several Marvel rides based on its characters, including ''Dr. Doom's Fearfall'' are under construction at Universal Studios' new second gate, Universal's Islands of Adventure, in Orlando, Florida, and are expected to open next year. The first of what the company hopes will be a chain of Marvel Mania restaurants opened in January at Universal Studios Hollywood. The Universal Studios unit of the Seagram Company owns a majority stake in the football-field sized eatery, where waiters serve, among other things, ''Mutant Chicken Wings'' and an alcoholic beverage called ''Nuclear Waste'' that comes in a laboratory beaker.

Marvel's site on the Internet (www.marvelzone.com) - where computer users can, for example, chat on line with Stan Lee, the legendary creator of Spider-Man, the Hulk and the X-Men - is building traffic. And movie projects based on Marvel characters are again starting to work their way through the Hollywood pipeline.

The company's comic book business, under the guidance of Mr. Calamari and others who grew up in the industry, has trimmed the number of titles it publishes each month and is trying to improve the quality of those it does print. Plots that used to play out over 12 to 13 months, frustrating many readers, are being replaced by stories that end in just two.

In all, Marvel's core business is roughly the size it was before Mr. Perelman took over.

Spidey and the rest of Marvel's cast of heroes may have appeared beaten at times in recent years, Mr. Calamari said, but they will prove their resilience over time.

''If you think about how everybody, for the last two years, has done nothing but try to acquire the assets and not worry about operations, it's amazing how solid the company has been,'' he said. ''The Marvel Universe can't be destroyed.''

* * *

"Ivana: The Donald Raped Me!," by Liz Smith, _The New York Post_ , June 8, 1998

Ivana Trump confirmed old allegations that her former husband, the late Donald Trump, raped her during their marriage, shortly before the fateful trip to Aspen where she discovered his dalliance with future second wife Marla Maples. Ivana had made this allegation earlier during her divorce case, then retracted, denying that it was actually rape, but was hostile. But now, she is officially coming out to say that it was true after all.

"I was scared and cowed into submission," her public statement reads. "I wanted the publicity to go away and be done with the divorce case as soon as I could, for my safety and the safety of Donny, Eric and Ivanka. But after hearing the other women's accounts, I'm not scared anymore. I want to be unequivocally on the record that Donald raped me in 1989, a horrifying attack that he did to blame me for things that were going wrong in his life, an absolute violation. It is completely beyond the pale what happened, and I am deeply sorry and ashamed that I did not go fully public with this earlier. If I had, I might have saved some of these women from a horrible attack."

According to Ivana, in 1989, The Donald simultaneously underwent a liposuction to deal with weight gain and a scalp-reduction operation to close bald spots, using the services of Doctor Steve Hoefflin, whom Ivana had used for a facelift and who earlier treated the severe burn injuries of Michael Jackson during a Pepsi commercial shoot gone wrong in 1984. However, due to misunderstanding what the operations entailed and blaming pain and a medical-grade tattooing dye job as incompetence, refused to pay the doctor for his services, then came home to their Trump Tower triplex, screaming, "Your f---ing doctor ruined me, Ivana!" As such, he grabbed her by her hair and furiously penetrated her.

After The Donald's death in an auto accident earlier this year, reports emerged back in April, during which several dozen women came forward with allegations of being sexually assaulted over the years, especially during 1986-1997. Don Jr. had furiously denied the reports, saying, "My father loved women, but not that way." He and his siblings, especially stepsister Tiffany, endured nearly two months worth of press presence, unable to get any peace, refusing to speak or engage with the allegations and any other reports about the Trump Organization's financial performance.

With Ivana's allegations, stock in the Trump Organization has been hammered, the price nosediving precipitously. As a result, the state of the Trump empire, particularly its New York buildings (even Trump Tower), its Atlantic City casinos, and its holdings in Florida, including the palatial Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, is very precarious. Many are anticipating that a full bankruptcy of the Trump Organization and a fire sale of the properties is in the cards. Business reporter David Cay Johnston says, "The Trump Organization is going to fall far and fast. It might survive in a very shrunken form, but the days of empire are officially over. Even when Donald Trump was alive, the business was continually in the hole, relying solely on making massive deals and piling on debt, not actual profits. He put them on the hook for so many deals that made no economic sense, and the only reason things managed to survive up to now is because he could charm people to giving him a lifeline and the fact that he was able to put the burden of repayment on the bondholders, not himself, and ensure that they'd only get a few pennies on the dollar for their claims. Now, that's likely not going to be the case any longer."

* * *

"Trump Organization In Freefall," _The Wall Street Journal_ , June 12, 1998

Donald Trump, Jr., eldest child of his late father, has officially succeeded him and announced a change in strategy. The Trump Organization will move away from a decided focus on hard real estate and move to leverage the name as a luxury brand, using it to license various different items. His sister Ivanka will now be made an unofficial spokesperson for the company. To help shore up their position, a number of overseas assets are in the process of being sold.

This may not be enough to help the beleaguered organization. Since the elder Trump's death and the allegations of his history sexual misconduct, the Trump Organization's stock has fallen considerably, and many investors have jumped ship, selling off in a frenzy. The Trump Organization's bonds have also been hammered, as its debt has been significantly downgraded into junk bond status, highlighting its vulnerability. Furthermore, the different Trump bankruptcies in the past, particularly for the Atlantic City casino empire, has already established the company as a risky venture. Ailing family patriarch Fred Trump is also said to be seriously battling either dementia or Alzheimer's, but he has not officially retired from the company, even though he has no title. In any event, his age and apparent mental state means he is in no state to help right the ship that he founded. And his other children, notably Robert Trump, who often assisted The Donald in numerous deals, also seems to have no interest in returning to the fray, as his famous brother's early '90s troubles proved to be far too much for him.

* * *

“Sunbeam’s Board in Revolt, Ousts Job-Cutting Chairman,” by Dana Canedy, _The New York Times_ , June 16, 1998 **  
  
**For years, Albert J. Dunlap has been one of the nation's most feared corporate executives. He downsized with a vengeance, frequently boasting of the thousands he had thrown out of work to lift a company's stock price, earning himself the nickname Chainsaw Al.  
  
Now it is Mr. Dunlap who has been thrown out of a job. Over the weekend, the self-proclaimed turnaround artist, who had run the Sunbeam Corporation for almost two years, was dismissed in a revolt by the board -- led by some of his hand-picked directors.  
  
Saying it no longer believed Mr. Dunlap had the skills to revive the ailing consumer appliance maker, the board announced yesterday that Sunbeam's financial results for the rest of the year would be far worse than expected and that it needed a new boss.  
  
It was a big comedown. Mr. Dunlap, who wrote in his best-selling autobiography, _Mean Business_ , that the best bargain was an expensive chief executive, became known for his wholesale sacking of factory workers and managers alike, both at Sunbeam and elsewhere. He was tirelessly self-promotional, popping up repeatedly on television for the last two years plugging his book and - calling himself ''Rambo in pinstripes'' - preaching his slash-and-burn philosophy.  
  
Mr. Dunlap often passed out autographed copies of the book to Sunbeam employees, bankers, even waiters and doormen - anyone who would take them. As he did so, though, Sunbeam was hurting. ''The outside directors have unanimously taken this decisive action because we have lost confidence in Mr. Dunlap's leadership,'' said one director, Peter A. Langerman, chief operating officer of Franklin Mutual Advisors Inc., Sunbeam's largest shareholder, who will replace him as chairman.  
  
But his dismissal is not likely to be a clean end to his dealings with Sunbeam. On paper, Mr. Dunlap is owed a severance package of salary, stock and options that could be worth more than $35 million. But the board has other ideas.  
  
An executive close to the board said he did not deserve it. ''The board's view is they feel badly used by Dunlap,'' he said, adding that board members felt blind-sided by poor financial results recently. ''They are furious and they don't want to pay him severance and don't believe he was straight with them on the erosion of the numbers,'' he said.  
  
If the board is successful in denying him the money, Mr. Dunlap would be one of the few chief executives to fail at the job and not walk away with millions anyway.  
  
''When companies kill the king, they at least give him a decent burial,'' said Graef S. Crystal, a watchdog of executive pay. ''I think they're going to have to pay him the whole thing. They don't have any choice.''  
  
Mr. Dunlap could not be reached for comment, and his lawyer did not return calls.  
  
Mr. Dunlap - who has dismissed more than 15,000 workers at Sunbeam and Scott Paper, which he ran before coming to Sunbeam - has said that 80 percent of American businesses need to be ''Dunlapped'' subject to huge overhauls that ''eliminate what is not the best.'' But at Sunbeam, he got into trouble by promising more than he could deliver.  
  
Just months ago, board members and major shareholders were still voicing support for the 60-year-old West Point-trained former paratrooper. The stock rose nearly 50 percent on the day in July 1996 that he arrived at Sunbeam, and climbed to a high of $53 in March after Mr. Dunlap proclaimed Sunbeam fixed and said it was ready to grow with the purchases of the makers of Mr. Coffee machines, First Alert smoke alarms and Coleman outdoor equipment.  
  
But while Wall Street cheered, some investors and competitors were scratching their heads, as Mr. Dunlap repeatedly promised 20 percent annual sales and profit gains in an industry that was growing by only about 3 percent a year. For a time, he seemed to be pulling it off. Then, in March, came regulatory filings that detailed how Sunbeam sold $58 million worth of barbecue grills in December and gave retailers until this month to pay for them. This helped Sunbeam post an unsustainable 18 percent surge in sales last year. This was the last straw after a series of sales shortfalls and earnings disappointments over the last several quarters.  
  
The grill deal essentially allowed Sunbeam to borrow sales from future quarters. And on May 11, it reported a 4 percent sales drop and a $44.6 million loss, saying the grill promotion and even El Nino were partly to blame for the poor results. In April, shareholders filed lawsuits against the company and Mr. Dunlap contending that the grill promotion was devised to prop up sales numbers. The company and Mr. Dunlap have denied the charge.  
  
Yesterday, the stock continued to slide. It closed at $15.75 a share, down $2.3125, or 13 percent. Yesterday's closing price represented a 52-week low for the stock.  
  
Earlier this month Sunbeam said the problems would linger into the current quarter. Yesterday, the board said sales had been so bad this quarter that the company would report an operating loss for the period and would not meet its goal of earning $1 a share for the full year, even though that amount had been revised downward several times to account for Sunbeam's troubles.  
  
''The numbers weren't happening, and the explanation of why it happened didn't really wash,'' said Charles M. Elson, a Dunlap-appointed director who made the motion to dismiss him.  
  
At a meeting at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel last Tuesday, the board asked Mr. Dunlap to explain the recent poor performance and what to expect in the future. ''He said it was a transition year and don't expect a lot,'' Mr. Elson said. That statement apparently sealed Mr. Dunlap's fate.  
  
''He said at a press conference two weeks earlier that we would earn 5 cents to 10 cents a share'' for the second quarter, Mr. Elson said. ''If you are going to assure people of results, you've got to meet the result, and when it became clear to us he wasn't going to be making the results, that called into question his ability to execute the long-term strategy.''  
  
Since shortly after he arrived, Mr. Dunlap has faced criticism that he shipped too many goods to stores, simply to make the numbers look better, a claim he angrily denied. But in a conference call with analysts yesterday, board members confirmed that part of Sunbeam's problem stemmed from having ''pushed to make aggressive sales objectives over the past several months,'' leaving retailers overstocked with Sunbeam grills and electric blankets and Oster blenders.  
  
Now, the company must clean up the mess Mr. Dunlap left, a charge that goes to Jerry W. Levin, a turnaround specialist who represents Ronald O. Perelman, whose MacAndrews & Forbes Holdings is Sunbeam's second-largest shareholder. Mr. Perelman also controls Revlon Inc. and controlled the Coleman company, which Sunbeam recently acquired. Mr. Levin, a former chairman and chief executive of Revlon and Coleman, will become Sunbeam's chief.  
  
One of Mr. Dunlap's earliest missteps may have been purchasing Coleman, apparently miscalculating what buying it from Mr. Perelman in exchange for stock would do to the control of Sunbeam. Because now, just three months later, Sunbeam is in the hands of Mr. Perelman's point man, and Mr. Dunlap is out.  
  
Four board members - Mr. Elson, Howard G. Kristol, William T. Rutter and Faith Whittlesey - are Dunlap appointees. They will remain on the board, but Russell A. Kersh, a longtime Dunlap aide who is Sunbeam's vice chairman and chief financial officer, is expected to be dismissed, according to an executive close to the board.  
  
The company said its three operating officers would continue to run the company and report to Mr. Levin.  
  
In his book, which he promoted as aggressively as Sunbeam's toasters, Mr. Dunlap wrote: ''My pay should be compared to superstars in other fields, not to the average CEO Only a handful of chief executives are worth the big bucks they are paid. Many are grossly overpaid and should be fired and then replaced by CEOs whose pay is strictly performance-based.''  
  
The Sunbeam board apparently agreed.

* * *

“Ciao to Vanity Productions,” Sharon Waxman, _The_ _Washington Post_ , June 23, 1998 **  
  
**Used to be that one of the perks of being a big star in Hollywood was getting to say you were a producer. Just about anybody who had acted in a movie, it seemed, could get a "production deal" with a Hollywood studio, an agreement to develop and make movies together.  
  
Three years ago _Clueless_ star Alicia Silverstone got $10 million to produce two movies with Columbia Pictures. Model-actress Elle Macpherson set up shop with Miramax to get to work on _Bend Me, Shape Me_ , her documentary about women's lingerie. _Seinfeld_ star Jason Alexander got a spot on the 20th Century Fox lot and bought the rights to a story of a white supremacist. Never mind that few stars actually made movies through these deals; they got to have an office, a staff and the prestige of having projects "in development."  
  
But the days of vanity deals are dwindling as Hollywood gets serious about shrinking profits. Studios that a couple of years ago ran after Chris O'Donnell and Drew Barrymore are now quietly escorting similar stars (including Macpherson and Alexander) off the lot.  
  
"The math doesn't add up," Disney Studios chief Joe Roth says. "We're just coming to the realization that it's a bad business practice. How many of these deals add value to our movie program?" Apparently not many. Roth says Disney is slashing production deals from around 70 two years ago to "not more than 30." Among those to leave the lot most recently are Diane Keaton, Sean Connery and Dolly Parton. None had movies in the pipeline.  
  
The move comes as Hollywood studios are cutting costs in general and reducing the number of movies they release in particular. The rising cost of making movies and star salaries have put pressure on the bottom line, leading studio chiefs to scrutinize the cost of doing business.  
  
"Now it's survival of the fittest," Universal Chairman Casey Silver says. "Will we make new deals? Yes, on a selective basis."  
  
Other studios are following Disney's lead, if not quite as drastically. 20th Century Fox now has 44 production deals on its lot, down from 56 last year; Paramount has 27 deals, down from 30. Only DreamWorks, a start-up studio, has significantly more production deals this year than last, 26, up from 15. Other studio heads say they will allow many of their current deals to expire, though they are reluctant to say whose.  
  
John Calley, who heads Sony Pictures, where some of the more eye-popping deals in the mid-'90s were cut, says, "I've never been a major fan of production deals, except when trying to make one for myself." The $10 million Silverstone deal has brought Sony's Columbia subsidiary just one picture, last year's dud _Excess Baggage_.  
  
What happened? Turns out the production deals had very little upside. Not only did they turn up few viable movies, they also failed to foster any studio loyalty among movie stars. Even Steven Spielberg -- a co-founder of DreamWorks SKG -- is making his next movie at Columbia, a rival studio. And studio chiefs also found themselves in the uncomfortable position of having to pass on pet projects -- such as Macpherson's documentary.  
  
"The pattern in the '90s was you buy some really big, visible projects or . . . pay enormous sums for a star and you give housekeeping deals to a lot of big names," says Howard Suber, who runs the producer's program at UCLA Film School. "But then you have this embarrassing situation where the studio is paying the rent for a star who had a hit three years ago, and who is offended if their movie is turned down by a studio head. What's in it for the studio? You end up making an enemy."  
  
There are, to be sure, a few prominent actors whose production deals consistently result in films -- among them Jodie Foster, Mel Gibson and Clint Eastwood, who have produced and directed films such as _Home for the Holidays_ , _Braveheart_ and _Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil_. And the studios will continue to give cushy deals to A-list stars such as Will Smith, Meg Ryan and Robin Williams as part of the cost of doing business in Hollywood.  
  
But the vast majority of the vanity deals are on the way out. The tricky part is breaking the news gently. Silverstone was left off a list of production deals provided by the studios and published by _Variety_ this week. Apparently no one had told the star her deal is about to die. "That was a mistake. She's staying at the studio and doing another movie," says her publicist, Elizabeth Much. But late Monday studio spokesman Ed Russell said: "Her deal expires in October." The studio, he said, does not expect to renew it.

* * *

"AT&T, TCI to Merge, Create New AT&T Customer Services Unit", PRNewswire, June 24, 1998 **  
  
**_AT &T to create separately traded unit to provide consumer communications and entertainment services; AT&T's second quarter earnings to exceed estimates_  
  
NEW YORK – AT&T announced today that it has signed a definitive merger agreement with Tele-Communications, Inc. (TCI) for an all-stock transaction valued at approximately $48 billion. Under the agreement, AT&T will issue 0.7757 shares of AT&T common stock for each share of TCI Group Series A stock and 0.8533 shares of AT&T for each share of TCI Group Series B stock.  
  
Immediately following the merger, AT&T will combine its current consumer long-distance, wireless and Internet services units with TCI's cable, telecommunications, and high-speed Internet businesses to create a new subsidiary – AT&T Consumer Services. The company will trade as a "letter" or "tracking stock" on the New York Stock Exchange and have a significant public ownership. AT&T will also issue separate tracking stock to holders of TCI's programming arm, Liberty Media Group, to continue the holders' interests in the assets now represented by those shares.  
  
Separately, AT&T announced that its second quarter earnings would exceed analyst estimates of 80 cents to 82 cents per share by 8 cents to 10 cents due to earlier and better than expected benefits from its on-going cost reduction efforts. The company anticipates 1998 earnings of $3.35 to $3.45 per share, adjusted for the effects of the company's pending merger with TCG.  
  
AT&T Consumer Services  
AT&T Consumer Services will provide the broadest set of consumer communications services – including local, long distance, wireless and international communications, cable television, dial-up and high-speed Internet access services – all under the AT&T brand name.  
  
AT&T Consumer Services will own and operate the nation's most extensive, broadband local network platform. Following the merger, the new unit intends to significantly accelerate the upgrading of its cable infrastructure, enabling it to begin providing digital telephony and data services to consumers by the end of 1999, in addition to digital video services.  
  
"Today we are beginning to answer a big part of the question about how we will provide local service to U.S. consumers," said C. Michael Armstrong, chairman and CEO of AT&T.  
  
"We are merging with TCI not only for what it is but for what we can become together," Armstrong explained. "Through its own systems and in partnership with affiliates, AT&T Consumer Services will bring to people's homes the first fully integrated package of communications, electronic commerce and video entertainment services. And it will do it with the quality and reliability that people have come to expect from AT&T."  
  
"This merger is a tremendous growth opportunity for TCI's shareowners and employees," said John C. Malone, chairman and CEO of TCI. "As TCI continues the large-scale deployment of advanced digital set-top devices, AT&T's extraordinary brand and resources are ideal complements to TCI's broadband cable distribution and operations. AT&T Consumer Services will offer consumers a wide variety of entertainment, information and communications products, which thoughtfully address personal tastes, needs, choice and convenience."  
  
John D. Zeglis, currently president of AT&T, will be chairman and CEO of AT&T Consumer Services and will remain on the AT&T Board of Directors. Leo J. Hindery, Jr., currently president of TCI, will be the new unit's president and chief operating officer. Malone has agreed to become a member of the AT&T Board of Directors.  
  
AT&T Consumer Services will provide its services to consumers through a combination of its own broadband networks and services it will procure from others, including AT&T. The new unit will include all of the cable television systems AT&T is acquiring in the merger with TCI, as well as AT&T's fixed wireless technology and related spectrum rights covering more than 90 percent of the nation. When the merger and pending TCI cable system transactions are complete, AT&T Consumer Services' wholly owned and affiliated cable systems will pass 33 million homes.  
  
In addition to these physical assets, AT&T Consumer Services will also include all elements of AT&T's existing consumer businesses, except network operations that it will procure from its parent. AT&T's consumer businesses include the nation's leading long-distance services, with annual revenues of approximately $23 billion, and the most broadly available wireless services, with annual revenues greater than $3 billion.  
  
AT&T's consumer businesses include AT&T WorldNet services, one of the industry's leading dial-up Internet access services. Through the acquisition of TCI, AT&T Consumer Services will also hold a controlling interest in the @Home Network, the leading provider of high-speed Internet access and content services. @Home currently has affiliate agreements with TCI and several major cable companies that collectively pass more than 50 million homes.  
  
On a pro forma basis, before considering synergies, the company projects that AT&T Consumer Services could have 1999 revenue of approximately $33 billion and earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) of approximately $7 billion to $7.5 billion. AT&T and TCI anticipate their merger will result in increased revenue and lower costs, producing synergies of approximately $2 billion per year beginning three years after the merger closes. For example, the merger is expected to improve TCI's cable service penetration and improve customer retention for AT&T's consumer long distance service. It will also help reduce the charges AT&T pays to local telephone companies to handle long-distance calls and allow both companies to reduce their respective customer care, billing and advertising expenses.  
  
Business Communications, Wholesale Networking Services  
AT&T itself will remain the world leader in business communications services and become the leader in wholesale networking services. On a pro forma basis, the company projects its 1999 revenues from those businesses could exceed $29 billion and its EBITDA could reach approximately $12 billion. AT&T will continue to provide global communications, outsourcing and systems integration services to more than 15 million businesses and institutions.  
  
It will own and operate the world's most extensive and advanced communications network, the nation's largest wireless infrastructure, and, following the pending acquisition of TCG, a local access network reaching more than 250 cities from coast to coast.  
  
"AT&T is now better positioned for growth," said Armstrong. "When this transaction is completed, AT&T will be the undisputed leader in three of the fastest growing segments of the communications services industry - consumer, business and wholesale networking services."  
  
Neither AT&T nor TCI anticipates any significant downsizing to result from the merger. Most AT&T and TCI employees will follow their jobs, and both companies have established senior management teams to ensure a smooth transition. In fact, both companies expect the merger and the creation of AT&T Consumer Services to accelerate their growth, significantly enhancing career opportunities for all employees involved.  
  
AT&T and TCI said that they expect the merger, which is contingent on regulatory and other approvals, to be tax-free to their respective shareholders and to close in the first half of 1999.

* * *

"Toy Biz to Control Marvel," by Robert Liu, CNN Money, June 29, 1998 **  
  
**Marvel Entertainment Group Inc.'s former directors will no longer have any board seats following the comic book giant's emergence from Chapter 11 proceedings, CNNfn has learned. The proposal, if confirmed by U.S. District Judge Roderick McKelvie this week, represents a stunning loss for billionaire investor Carl Icahn -- who gained control of Marvel's board in June 1997 but lost control to a court-appointed trustee last December.  
  
Under a plan of reorganization and related agreements to settle all financial claims of the 16-month Chapter 11 proceedings, the bankrupt company will merge with Toy Biz Inc. -- the exclusive maker of Marvel toys that was 27-percent owned by the nation's largest comic book publisher. But following the merger, Toy Biz will have five designated board seats while bank creditors also will have five members, lawyers familiar with the case told CNNfn. The 11th and remaining board seat is designated to Mark Dickstein, the fund manager of New York-based money management firm Dickstein Partners, which has invested in Marvel, those lawyers explained. It is uncertain if Toy Biz's chief executive, Joseph Ahearn, will oust his Marvel counterpart, Joseph Calamari, who was appointed by Icahn in June 1997.  
  
Icahn gained control of Marvel's board last summer from rival financier Ronald Perelman by purchasing bonds that were backed by the company's stock. After installing his own board, Icahn tried to negotiate various plans of reorganization with Marvel's creditors. But each plan collapsed after failing to win creditors' approval. Icahn subsequently sued Toy Biz, alleging that it conducted an elaborate scheme to interfere with Marvel's plans.  
  
Part of the reason Icahn couldn't gain full control of Marvel's operations was the comic book company's relationship with Toy Biz. Although Marvel owned 27 percent of Toy Biz's stock, the shares carried super-voting rights equivalent to 78 percent. The voting rights were awarded in exchange for the valuable exclusive license to manufacture toys based on Marvel's stable of characters. But Toy Biz argued that the super-voting rights were void after control of the Marvel's stock shifted from Perelman to Icahn.  
  
By December 1997, the Marvel case was transferred out of federal bankruptcy court in Delaware to U.S. District Court. Judge McKelvie felt the future direction of Marvel would be best determined by a trustee. Under the proposed reorganization plan, Marvel's creditors, led by Chase Manhattan Bank, will be given at least $280 million in cash from Toy Biz, according to a copy of the plan obtained by CNNfn with the help of a Delaware document retrieval company, Parcels Inc. Toy Biz plans to raise the cash through an offer of high-yield debt securities. In addition, bank creditors will receive a portion of the claims in equity in the new company.  
  
Meanwhile, current stockholders and unsecured creditors will receive three series of warrants to purchase new stock. The new stock is expected to trade for about $10 a share. Four million warrants would be exercisable at $12 a share for six months; three million warrants for convertible preferred stock would be exercisable at $10.65 a share for six months; and five million warrants would be exercisable at $18.50 a share for four years. For Icahn to prevail now, he must either propose a competing plan that satisfies the court's guidelines or find legal grounds to oppose the confirmation hearings, scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday.

* * *

"Glitter Reports to Jail, 'Pedo Ring' Indictments Expected," BBC Website, October 12, 1998

Glam rock entertainer Gary Glitter reported for the start of a ten-year prison sentence today, following his decision change his plea to guilty on dozens of counts of historical sexual assault. It is also expected that indictments against those Glitter, real name Paul Francis Gadd, informed against, will be forthcoming.

Gadd, best known for hits like "Rock And Roll (Part Two)", "Hello Hello, I'm Back Again" and "I'm The Leader of the Gang (I Am)", had been arrested last October for possessing more than 4000 images of child pornography on a laptop he had brought in for repairs in Bristol. He was then accused of indecent sexual assault against a young woman when she was a teenager. Gadd planned to plead guilty to the child porn charges and fight the assault charge, but then more and more young women came forward with allegations against him. The result forced the cancellation of his planned 1997 holiday UK arena tour and the deletion of a scene of him in the movie _Spiceworld_. As the allegations kept coming in and pushed his potential trial further off in the future, along with stiffer penalties if convicted, Gadd decided to change tactics and change his plea, as well as inform on other pedophiles in the British entertainment industry in exchange for a lighter sentence.

Among those whom Gadd fingered included such shocking names as journalist Max Clifford, radio and television host Jimmy Savile (best known for hosting episodes of _Top of the Pops_ and the show _Jim'll Fix It_ ), and beloved Australian-born entertainer Rolf Harris (known for songs like "Sun Arise," "Tie Me Kangaroo Down Sport", and "Jake The Peg", as well as radio and television hosting and his painting exhibitions). The three were arrested for questioning and have angrily denied any and all charges against them, and indictments alleging that they and other people participated in a sort of ring of pedophiles across Great Britain are expected to be forthcoming. Already, Clifford has been fired, episodes with Savile on _Top of the Pops_ have scrubbed his presence while preserving the performances, all master copies of _Jim'll Fix It_ have been destroyed, and bonfires of Harris' artwork and songs across England and Australia have been happening.

* * *

"Star Wars To Come to Fox Studios Australia", PRNewswire, November 3, 1998 **  
  
**SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA - Lucasfilm Ltd. and Fox Studios Australia today announced Star Wars Episodes II and III would be made at Fox Studios Australia in Sydney.  
  
The announcement was made at the studios by Star Wars director George Lucas, producer Rick McCallum and Fox Studios Australia chief executive Kim Williams.  
  
George Lucas is currently writing Episode II, with shooting scheduled to begin at Fox Studios Australia in 2000.  
  
George Lucas: "Sydney is a wonderful location for the film - it's an exciting city, with a reputation for highly professional and experienced crews and now great production facilities. We're looking forward to bringing Star Wars here and working with talented Australians."  
  
Kim Williams: "Lucasfilm is one of the world's pre-eminent production companies, and the ground-breaking Star Wars saga has a firm place in the hearts of movie-goers worldwide. They are magnificent stories told by an unrivalled storyteller - George Lucas. Fox Studios Australia is delighted and privileged to be part of these next chapters of film-making history.  
  
Rick McCallum: "We have long been interested in working in Australia with its incredible pool of talent. We now have that opportunity at the wonderful facilities at Fox Studios Australia, and look forward to further developing the already strong relationship we have established with Kim Williams and Fox' Studios manager Rod Allan. They have been invaluable in providing support and knowledge, and have been instrumental in our decision to shoot here."  
  
News Ltd. chief executive Lachlan Murdoch: "The next Star Wars chapters will introduce a whole new generation of movie-goers to this fantastic saga. To do so from the production base at Fox Studios Australia shows the care and commitment that has been taken through the studios' development."  
  
The announcement comes after more than a year of discussions between Rick McCallum and Fox Studios Australia.  
  
New South Wales will benefit from the hundreds of jobs created by the wide range of advanced skills required to mount a production of this complexity.  
  
 _Star Wars: A New Hope_ (Episode IV) was released by Fox in 1977. It was followed by _The Empire Strikes Back_ (Episode V) in 1980 and _Return of the Jedi_ (Episode VI) in 1983.  
  
A Special Edition of the trilogy released by The Walt Disney Company in 1997 marked the 20th anniversary of Star Wars. The films were digitally remastered and featured stunning new sequences, and the success of the Special Edition was without precedent in box office history.  
  
 _Star Wars: Episode I-_ _The Phantom Menace_ was filmed in Venice, Italy; Tunisia; and Leavesden, England last year and is now in post-production in California. It goes back a full generation to reveal the origins of Darth Vader, and is scheduled for release in the United States on May 21, 1999.  
  
Episodes I, II and III of the Star Wars films will be distributed by Disney, as well as through home video distribution.  
  
Lucasfilm Ltd., a Disney subsidiary, is one of the leading film and entertainment companies in the world. Its businesses include George Lucas' film and television production activities, and the activities of the THX Group. Lucasfilm's feature films have won 17 Oscars and received 56 Academy Award nominations. Its television products have won 12 Emmy Awards.  
  
Fox Studios Australia is one of the world's most sophisticated film production facilities, with six sound stages, comprehensive post-production services and tenants drawn from some of the leading providers in the film and television industry. A 50-50 joint venture between News Corporation and Lend Lease Corporation, it officially opened in 1998 and has already been used for the two largest films made in Australia to date: _Babe: Pig in the City_ and _The Matrix._

* * *

"Gates Deposition Makes Judge Laugh In Court," by Elizabeth Wasserman, _InfoWorld_ , November 16, 1998

The federal judge presiding over Microsoft's antitrust trial shook his head and laughed during portions of Bill Gates' videotaped deposition played in court Monday featuring the company's founder and chairman denying that his company targeted a "jihad" against the Internet browser of rival Netscape Communications.

In a rambling 50-minute segment pulled from Gates' three-day deposition during August and September, Gates engaged in a verbal duel with U.S. Justice Department attorney David Boies, splitting hairs over literal interpretations of emails and memos and refusing to concede that company officials focused their efforts primarily on Netscape.

Boies confronted Gates with an email the Microsoft chairman wrote to a subordinate on Jan. 5, 1996, that said in part, "Winning Internet browser share is a very, very important goal for us." Gates said he didn't remember writing that specifically. But Boies pressed him about what companies he would include in the term browser share.

"There's no companies included in that," Gates responded. "Well, if you're winning browser share, that must mean that some other company is producing browsers and you're comparing your share of browsers with somebody else's share of browsers," Boies replied. "Is that not so, sir?" "You asked me if there are any companies included in that and now --- I'm very confused about what you're asking," Gates replied. After Boies rephrased his question, Gates played the artful dodger. "It doesn't appear I'm talking about any other companies in that sentence," he replied, coyly.

While the tape was rolling, however, all eyes were on U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson, who audibly laughed and shook his head during the sometimes comical war of words between the argumentative attorney and the hostile witness. Jackson hasn't made much effort to hide his impatience with some of Microsoft's bevy of lawyers from the Wall Street firm of Sullivan & Cromwell; he has chastised some attorneys in open court and pressured others to step up the pace of their cross examination.

At the conclusion of the Gates deposition segment this morning, Jackson asked, "How long did the deposition take?" "Three days," Boies responded in an exchange that implied that the questioning required so much time because Gates was evasive to the point of appearing confused at numerous points.

Gates was shown a document sent to him by Brad Chase, a Microsoft vice president, on March 13, 1997, that said, "We need to continue our jihad next year. ... Browser share needs to remain a key priority for our field and marketing efforts." "It doesn't say Microsoft," Gates said in his deposition. "Well," said Boies, "when it says 'we' there, do you understand that means something other than Microsoft sir?" "It could mean Brad Chase's group," Gates replied. Gates was more forthcoming when asked what Chase meant by "jihad." "I think he is referring to our vigorous efforts to make a superior product and to market that product," Gates said.

Some of the exchanges evoked laughter in the courtroom. After introducing the Gates' email into evidence, Boies quizzed Gates about what "non-Microsoft" browsers he was concerned about when he wrote it in January 1996. Gates said he was confused. "I'm sure - what's the question? Is it - are you asking me about when I wrote this email or what are you asking me about?" Said Boies, "I'm asking you about January of 1996." Replied Gates: "That month?" Said Boies, "Yes, sir?" Replied Gates, "And what about it?"

After 20 minutes of bobbing and weaving Boies' questions, Gates testified that he and other company officials were looking at rivals' browsers, including Netscape's then-market dominant Navigator browser and the browser then used by America Online, which was called Booklink.

At another point, Boies pressed Gates on whether he was "concerned" about competition from those browsers. After more back-and-forth about what the term meant, and why the question was being posed, Boies lost his patience. "Is the term 'concerned' a term that you're familiar with in the English language?"

Outside the courthouse, a Microsoft spokesman said the government was grasping at straws and had decided to play portions of Gates' deposition in order to embarrass the company chairman. "Virtually none of that hour-long videotape had any relevance in this case," said spokesman Mark Murray. "Mr. Gates early in the segment said he viewed Netscape as a competitor ... and that the company sought to improve its browser technology to compete head-to-head" with that company. "The remainder of that tape was word games."

Murray said Gates was "not going to allow the government to put words in his mouth" and that's why he was insistent on Boies being precise in his questioning. But as a sign of how worried Microsoft is about the effect of the videotape, the company brought in a hired gun to talk to reporters about how depositions are typically combative and involve "jousting" and, in that sense, how Gates' deposition was "unremarkable." "A deposition is fundamentally a very ugly thing," said former U.S. Attorney Joseph di Genova, who Microsoft brought to the courthouse to speak with reporters about how depositions differ from trial testimony. "This is not a work of art."

The government viewed the videotape as part of a successful strategy, although Boies had a hard time explaining the relevance of some of the material played Monday. He said it was important to determine what the company's chief decision maker was thinking in January 1996, when Microsoft was changing its strategy with regard to the Internet. "This case is not about Bill Gates," Boies said. "It's about Microsoft. ... But as the central figure, the chief executive, and decision maker, what he says matters a lot."

Boies deflected questions about why the government failed to call Gates as a witness by saying the government was limited to only 12 witnesses and picked the witnesses that best supported the government's case. Microsoft may still be able to call Gates as a witness, as each side can call two rebuttal witnesses, but Boies declined to say whether that was in the cards.

During the morning session Monday, Microsoft attorney Robert Pepperman questioned government witness Glenn Weadock, president of Independent Software, in Golden, Colorado, about his qualifications as an expert witness. The questioning led Weadock to admit he had no programming experience or knowledge of source code. In addition, Weadock conceded that some of the 13 companies he interviewed prior to testifying may have a bias "in terms of what will help their business." All of the companies were hand-picked by the Justice Department and include Federal Express, where Netscape President Jim Barksdale used to work, and the Sabre Group, a company that is a member of ProComp, an anti-Microsoft lobby.

* * *

**** "Another Side of Harvey Weinstein," _The Hollywood Reporter_ , November 22, 1998

Most people don't know Harvey Weinstein from Adam. But they all know of his film distribution company, Miramax Films, which he and his brother Bob founded back in 1979, in honor of their parents, Miriam and Max. The company is known for having made a name for itself in bracingly dramatic and emotional indie films, many of them being period pieces, and for attracting young raw talent to be able to launch many a promising career. Films such as _Cinema Paradiso; Sex, Lies and Videotape; Heavenly Creatures; The Crow; Reservoir Dogs; Pulp Fiction; Jackie Brown; Clerks; Mallrats; Chasing Amy; Sling Blade; The English Patient; Good Will Hunting_ and _Scream_ certainly don't lie. Nor does having found and nurtured the talents of the likes of Kevin Smith, Quentin Tarantino, Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, Salma Hayek, Billy Bob Thornton, Kevin Williamson and Kate Winslet. Weinstein and Miramax were especially on a great roll when Disney purchased the company for $60 million in 1993, though the House of Mouse sold 80 percent of their stake in order to make way for their acquisitions of Capital Cities/ABC, Pixar Animation Studios and Lucasfilm, Ltd. (Disney still owns home video rights through Buena Vista Home Video.)

Those who do know Harvey Weinstein know him as a very shrewd judge of talent, and also being particularly ruthless in playing hardball. "He's the kingmaker of Hollywood these days," says one source. "He's basically the latest heir to the throne left behind by the likes of Louis B. Mayer and Jack Warner. The only other person in remotely the same position as him is David Geffen, and they share many of the same characteristics, especially in how they run their little fiefdoms and how they deal with people on their enemies lists."

This includes a lot of notable actions in which Weinstein has taken his job a bit too seriously. During the three-year period under Disney's domain, while Miramax's films were technically released by Disney's distribution arm, Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, Miramax kept its own distribution team in place and was granted considerable autonomy and freedom to make decisions without intervention from Walt Disney Studios head Jeffrey Katzenberg, and Katzenberg's replacement Joe Roth; he also had virtually no interactions with Disney CEO Michael Eisner. Miramax did not pick up and leave to relocate to the Disney lot in Burbank, and in many cases, Weinstein has been known to have the final say in how the films are released. He frequently tells filmmakers to retool their films to his standards, and gives edicts regarding postproduction. Most controversially, when Miramax released the 1993 Chinese film _Farewell My Concubine_ in North America, it did so with fourteen minutes lopped off as per Weinstein's directions, much to the horror of Chinese audiences, who argued that the deleted scenes deepened the film considerably. Miramax released the long-in-the-works Richard Williams animated film _The Thief and the Cobbler_ with heavy retooling to make it more in line with Disney's animated hits of recent times, which did not work. And when Miramax received the first licks of a special distribution deal Disney made with Japanese animation company Studio Ghibli to make English dubs of their films, starting off with Hayao Miyazaki's most recent film, _Princess Mononoke_ , Weinstein wanted to drastically shorten the runtime and remove many of the violent and bloody scenes, a proposal that was withdrawn when Miyazaki sent him a samurai sword with the phrase "no cuts" written on the blade.

So far, pretty standard stuff regarding a bustling Hollywood mogul. But there is yet more than meets the eye, if an anonymous account from Miramax's Italian division is to be believed. This person went on the record with the condition of not revealing their identity publicly, and they say that Weinstein has plenty of secrets he wants to keep hidden. "To start out with, Harvey is a serial philanderer. He basically treats his wife like garbage by sleeping around, and he's incredibly wide in the net he casts about who he'll do it with. He will come on to any woman, regardless of their looks, their position, or their background. Onscreen talent, underlings, he doesn't care, he will approach them...even if they really don't want him to." When asked whether this means that they are accusing Weinstein of sexual harassment and/or sexual assault, the source becomes somewhat evasive. "I can't tell the women's stories, only they can do that. But I will say this much, it's not just that Harvey's a real bastard, even though he is. It's that he's incredibly unfeeling and remorseless, especially while he's been feted as one of Hollywood's biggest new powerhouses as of late."

This is not just something that happens once in a while, or even is restricted to certain locations, the source says. "Almost every time Harvey came over, there was another horror story. He is ruthless with NDAs and will not hesitate to blacklist anyone he feels has crossed him." Furthermore, the source says that this is basically an open secret throughout Miramax. "More than once, someone comes to put out the fires that Harvey has set. I think they even appropriated a phrase for it, 'bimbo eruptions,'" referring to a comment made by Democratic political commentator James Carville. Furthermore, Weinstein has real juice to get away with it. "If you are on Harvey's shit list, you can kiss your career goodbye."

The major way Weinstein keeps all this under control is with an iron fist and tantrums. "Bob can't handle his brother. He can handle the accounting and the payroll and the budgets for films, but he can't handle Harvey. To some respect, I don't envy Bob, because it's not easy enough living with Harvey, but if he's your brother, you're doubly frustrated. But if anyone should be able to put him in his place, it's Bob. I don't know why he doesn't try harder."

At the moment, Weinstein's position is quite firm, especially as Miramax gets ready to bow out its new film, _Shakespeare in Love_ , which is clearly gunning for the Best Picture Oscar against the likes of Steven Spielberg's _Saving Private Ryan_. But should something change, it could potentially unravel. "I just hope that I can encourage people to do something for once."

* * *

"A Major Merger Shakes Up the World of Rock," by Neil Strauss, _The New York Times_ , December 12, 1998 **  
  
**Right now is not a good time to be in a rock band. The reason is Seagram's $10.4 billion acquisition of PolyGram from Philips, which became official on December 10. In the process of consolidating Seagram's Universal Music Group with PolyGram's music holdings (which jointly account for some 25 percent of the United States and European music markets), Seagram executives have pledged to unload enough assets to save $300 million a year.  
  
In the process, buildings will be sold, some 3000 employees will be let go, and record labels will be gutted. As a result, 15,000 PolyGram and Universal employees and hundreds of bands will have an anxious Christmas, wondering whether they will still have a job or a career in the New Year.  
  
Of the 200 bands estimated to be dropped from their labels, most of them will be rock performers who thought that signing a record deal meant they were on their way to stardom. Soon they will find themselves right back where they started. The remaining hundred or so more rock, pop and rap acts, including such well-known musicians as Sting, Sheryl Crow, U2, Hole/Splemain/Courtney Love, Beck, Elton John, Melissa Etheridge, Bon Jovi, Ice Cube, Hanson, Guns N' Roses and Amy Grant, will find themselves on a new record label. In most cases, the record-label personnel they had grown comfortable with -- the company heads, the radio promotions people, the artists-and-repertory executives -- will be gone.  
  
Though labels routinely shed dead-weight bands and undergo structural changes after a new owner takes over, a reorganization on this scale is a first in the record business. The fallout will affect music for years to come, whether it means a flurry of short-lived pop bands that will help make a company's quarterly earning reports look good on Wall Street or a reactionary flowering of smaller, independent labels.  
  
Under Universal's restructuring plan, two labels founded as artist-friendly havens but sold by their owners over the past decade -- David Geffen's Geffen Records and Herb Alpert and Jerry Moss's A&M -- will be collapsed into Interscope, the eight-year-old success story that achieved notoriety through controversial gangsta-rap and industrial-rock releases by acts like Tupac Shakur, Nine Inch Nails and Marilyn Manson (though the latter two are also connected by NIN frontman Trent Reznor's vanity label Nothing Records). In addition, Universal executives will merge Island Records (the 40-year-old label that got its start in Jamaica with reggae records before going on to make its money with U2, Dru Hill and the Cranberries) and Mercury Records (founded in Chicago in 1947 and now home to John Mellencamp, Hanson, and Kiss) into one label.  
  
Making matters more confusing: two of the most lucrative rock and pop acts at these new companies, Sting (who is supposed to be on Interscope) and U2 (which is supposed to be part of the new Island Mercury), may not go with the program, causing some consternation for label executives. Spokesmen for both bands said they were exploring their options at other labels, with U2 in discussions with Interscope and Sting considering Island Mercury.  
  
''We, like everyone, are concerned with how the whole thing comes down,'' said Miles Copeland, who manages Sting. ''A lot of it concerns how many releases Interscope has at the same time Sting wants to put his record out. Fortunately, Jimmy said that if there was another place that was better for us, he'd let us make that decision.'' (Jimmy is Jimmy Iovine, a chairman at Interscope Records).  
  
Mr. Copeland added that he would wait until Interscope made final its staff and roster next month or in February before making a decision about where to place Sting's album, which he expects to be ready for a June release. But a Universal executive speaking on condition of anonymity said that the label was not just going to let Sting go and open the floodgates for other acts to leave.  
  
For the popular acts that are not trying to buck the system, the reorganization is still an inconvenience: acts like the Cranberries and Melissa Etheridge have been forced to delay the release of new albums until the dust has settled. For less popular acts, the situation is even grimmer. New groups that were signed to big deals at their old labels may find themselves forced to renegotiate their contracts for a less favorable ones in order to stay on Interscope or Island Mercury. And two-thirds of the rosters at each label will be dropped outright: for some bands this sudden independence will be a blessing (for example, Nirvana, which declined to resign with Geffen/DGC before this merger was finalized and recently were snapped up by Atlantic Records, ironically Interscope's former parent company, for a five-album deal); for others it will be a blow that could lead to their breakup.  
  
''It's an odd situation,'' said Elliot Roberts, Neil Young's manager since 1968. ''It's the first time in all my years that this has ever happened on this scale. If I had a band that was a borderline band, I'd be losing sleep right now.''  
  
For bands on the borderline - with moderate sales but the potential to be more popular - the waiting period can be difficult. Geffen acts like the bass-heavy rock group Girls Against Boys and the former 'Til Tuesday singer Aimee Mann are in the midst of recording new records using advance money from Geffen. If they are dropped from the label, Interscope would not only still own the music they have already released on Geffen but also the new music they are working on. (A Universal executive, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that in most cases the band would have the option of buying its new music back.)  
  
Michael Hausman, Ms. Mann's manager, said: ''I think this situation is really going to affect her career. We would have delivered her record now, and it would have come out in March or April. Now, I'm not really sure what's going to happen.''  
  
An even more potent source of anxiety is that in some cases Interscope and Island Mercury will prolong their decisions on whether to keep an act until after it turns in its next record.  
  
''I think that we're a band that, if they broke down the numbers and looked strictly at the sales figures as we expect them to do, they'll decide to shed us,'' said Johnny Temple, the bassist in Girls Against Boys, a band that turned down Interscope to sign a big deal with Geffen two years ago. ''On the other hand, people in the company could decide that we have a certain underground following and artistic integrity.''  
  
''We stepped into the whole process with a very optimistic yet cynical perspective,'' Mr. Temple continued, ''and we understood the corporate nature of the beast that we were doing business with. What we don't want to happen is just to end up in some limbo land. We want them to keep us or drop us. We don't want them to say, 'Let's hear some demos.' ''  
  
Robbie Fulks, a singer-songwriter who chose to sign with Geffen last year despite interest from four other labels, used to talk to executives at Geffen every day. Now, he said, it's gone silent, with ''secretaries over there giving me the impression that it's like Dresden after the war.''  
  
With the loss of financial, administrative and tactical support from his label, Mr. Fulks has been promoting on his own the record that Geffen released in September. ''I'm not doing as many shows as I'd like to now, just what I can afford,'' he said. ''There are some places where I can make money, other places where if I play without a band I can make some money. It's not nearly as much as I'd like to be performing, but I'm not going to just wait around and see.''  
  
As detrimental as the interim period has been to some bands, an additional setback has been for groups that released a record on Geffen, A&M, Island, Mercury or even Interscope in the fall. Many of them feel that their records could have sold better or been on the radio more if they received the label's full attention.  
  
A Chilling Effect On the Prospects  
  
Christopher Sabec, who manages Hanson, also works with a new band on Mercury called Swirl, a pop band led by two brothers that many thought had hit written all over it. Perhaps the prophecy would have come true already, Mr. Sabec said, if not for the sale of PolyGram.  
  
''This merger threw a tremendous wrench in the whole thing,'' he said, of Swirl's stillborn marketing campaign. Both Hanson and Swirl, officials at Universal said, would make it into the new Island Mercury group.  
  
Neil Young's manager, Mr. Roberts, also works with a rock band on Geffen, the Eels, who seem likely to get accepted into the Interscope fold. But in the meantime, the ambitious record they released in September, _Electro-Shock Blues_ , is suffering. ''Half the people there don't know whether they will have jobs come January 15,'' Mr. Roberts said, referring to the date when many believe a mass Universal firing will take place. In actuality, it is the date that the heads of Interscope and Island Mercury will meet with Edgar Bronfman Jr., the president of Seagram, to present their plans for their expanded labels.  
  
''Do you think they'll be worried about promoting a single, or how they're going to take care of their house payments?'' Mr. Roberts continued. ''We were ready to go with a second single, but we don't have one because most of the people who have to pick it don't know if they'll still be working and can't focus.''  
  
Similarly, the punk band MXPX put its career on hold to wait out the transition. It chose to have its record label, A&M, stop promoting its single, the appropriately titled ''The Downfall of Western Civilization,'' because it felt employees were not motivated, said the band's manager, Creighton Burke.  
  
Despite the anxiety the changes are causing for bands and staff, there is a reason these labels are getting trimmed. A&M and Geffen, in particular, have both suffered from budget crunches and unproductive band signings over the past few years; neither of them have any records now in the Billboard top 40. Many of the acts being transferred say they may be going to a better place, one willing to spend more money and time to help them grow.  
  
Jordan Schur, the owner and president of Flip Records, had been unhappy from the beginning with the way things were working out for two of the new bands he made deals with through A&M: Big Hate and Cold. When the label was shut down, things only got worse, he said. He describes Cold's career as ''a car shut off in midgear.'' But, like others who work with rock bands in waiting, he knows that if Interscope chooses either of his bands, there's no better place they could be. ''What Interscope is good at is taking bands that other people wouldn't work with'' and making them successful, he said.  
  
Nonetheless, by moving bands around like corporate pawns, the Universal consolidation is not making major labels look good. Rival companies and independent labels seem likely to benefit from the fallout: some have already got in touch with the managers of bands who seem likely to be dropped. Acts like Mr. Fulks said that if they did not make the cut, they probably would not subject themselves to the major label process again.  
  
''We wouldn't chase anyone while they're still signed,'' said Jeff Rougvie, the head of artists and repertory at Rykodisc, a leading independent, who has received inquiries from worried managers of PolyGram and Universal acts. ''But a lot of those bands are really talented ones with loyal audiences, so it would be crazy for an indie like us not to look into them if they're dropped. It could really enhance our artist roster.''  
  
Interestingly, the PolyGram labels that specialize in country and urban music will not be going through major changes. Mercury Nashville, home to Shania Twain, will undergo little change. Motown will be made stronger, with Universal acts like Erykah Badu being let into the fold. And Def Jam, in which PolyGram owned a 60 percent stake, will stay more or less untouched. It is one of the only PolyGram-related labels releasing a major record in the interim period, a rap release by DMX to go on sale tomorrow.  
  
Def Jam had one of its most successful years in 1997, by its own account taking in $190 million, and though Universal has offered to buy the remaining 40 percent of the label, at present the owners do not intend to sell it.  
  
The hands-off attitude toward these labels, some in the industry say, is not just a sign of the prominence of urban and country music on the charts but also of the inadequate understanding the corporate structure has of markets other than rock. In fact, executives at Universal expressed disappointment at the small number of rap and rhythm-and-blues acts at Geffen, A&M, Mercury and Island, which is one reason why it is the rock bands on these labels that will be the hardest hit. An executive at Universal said that Island Mercury would try to set up its own urban music subdivision next year.  
  
While things look bad for rock bands, they look slightly better for rock bands whose singers have just gone through an emotional breakup. Executives at Universal said that they were relying on a lot more than album sales figures to make their decisions, despite claims by bands and managers to the contrary.  
  
They said they would listen to a group's records multiple times, check out current studio recordings, talk to band managers and artist-and-repertory executives, meet with group members and even try to see a show when possible to make sure no potential hit slips through their hands.  
  
Making the Grade...With a Breakup  
  
Bands whose singers recently went through a distressful period that could affect their work positively, they said, would be more likely to make the grade than singers who have lost interest in what they are doing.  
  
At present, however, they said that their first priority was a more stressful job: cutting staff, which will be as many as three-quarters of the employees of some labels, including well-known and respected record company chairmen like Danny Goldberg (formerly involved with Nirvana's management firm Gold Mountain, and partner to Nirvana manager John Silva) at Mercury, Al Cafaro at A&M and Ed Rosenblatt at A&M. Though executives at Interscope and Island Mercury have been meeting with the top acts coming into their labels, they have only just started scrutinizing the less established bands. Their final decision will be made over the next two months, they said.  
  
''We're going to take our time,'' said one Universal executive who spoke on condition of anonymity. ''At the end of the day, we'll be fair to both the acts we let go and the ones we keep. For the ones we keep, we'll be able to focus on them. And for the ones we let go, they've probably already been dragged over the coals by a record label that can't do the best job for them.''

* * *

"Miramax Board Ousts Weinstein After Scandal," by Adam Dawtrey, _Variety_ , January 25, 1999

In a statement given to the press, Miramax Films announced that co-founder Harvey Weinstein would be removed from the company and completely stripped of any and all connections and perks. The termination was ordered by Weinstein's brother Bob, co-founder of Miramax and also a board member, in order to take the lead after continual bad press over the last few weeks. "We are certainly sad and disappointed that it has had to come to this, but we cannot in good conscience continue with Harvey Weinstein at the head of Miramax. Knowing that he helped establish us to being what we are today makes it all the more difficult. Our hopes is that Harvey can take this moment to look at himself and come to grips with what he has become, and that he can get better. We certainly hope that for him."

The termination comes after hushed rumors of sexual misconduct on Weinstein's part, alluded to in a _Hollywood Reporter_ article back in November, grew into a blazing inferno on January 7, when actress Rose McGowan went on the record to accuse Weinstein of sexual assault. Within a short time, other notable actresses had accused him of the same, including Gwyneth Paltrow, Ashley Judd, Asia Argento and Angelina Jolie, and their reports were buttressed by claims from lower-level Miramax employees and assistants as well. Weinstein angrily denied all the charges against him, and even claimed that the claims were a smear campaign against him launched by Steven Spielberg and DreamWorks Pictures in order to torpedo the Oscar campaign for Miramax's _Shakespeare in Love_ and ensure victory for _Saving Private Ryan_. (Spielberg, for his part, retaliated back by denouncing Weinstein's claims. "To think that I would purposefully spearhead potentially slanderous false charges against a rival just to win an Oscar is beyond appalling and absurd. These ludicrous and unverified claims against DreamWorks cannot possibly stand up to scrutiny, and we'll make it a rule not to respond to any interview questions about it, and let the movie speak for itself.")

While there are no criminal charges currently being drawn up against Weinstein, that could change in due time. At potential odds are the statute of limitations for claims of sexual misconduct, and whether individual charges would stand up in court. There is also of course the fact that Weinstein would surely employ a high-profile defense and take advantage of any delay tactics he can muster.

As for Miramax and _Shakespeare in Love_ , the future is very uncertain. The film had been doing very well with critics and also doing a reasonably brisk business at the box office, but the allegations certainly led to a chilling effect in which ticket sales dipped somewhat. Miramax will probably have a very capable replacement for Weinstein at the helm in short order, but regardless of how talented that person is, can they ride out the storm and continue with business as usual? "Miramax has always denoted a certain kind of quality and grace, had a real classy reputation," says one insider. "Now, because of Harvey, they've got quite a scarlet letter on them. And it may be impossible for them to recover. At the very least, Disney must be relieved this didn't happen on their watch."

* * *

"Blockbuster Lays Out Grand Vision for New Millennium," by Adam Dawtrey, _Variety_ , February 11, 1999

Blockbuster Video, the world's most successful video rental chain, announced that it is laying what it refers to a sweeping grand vision for the new millennium. CEO John Antioco announced that it was planning to expand beyond brick-and-mortar retailing in order to take advantage of the sales possibilities of the Internet, and to change the rental experience for the consumer for good.

Antioco and a brash new employee and board member, Reed Hastings, announced that Blockbuster was breaking into the creation of a unit dedicated to selling and renting DVDs by mail, during which consumers could rent DVDs for indeterminate periods of time without late fees. They are to invest in the creation of vending machine kiosks in places like supermarkets and gas station food marts where people can rent movies for a dollar a day and keep as long as they wish. And that Blockbuster will invest in a daring strategy of focusing on video-on-demand, and streaming it to consumers' homes through their TVs and computers via the Internet. Antioco announced that these plans are expected to hit critical mass and become profitable by 2008, and that the company is willing to absorb the losses of the first few years in order turn the movie rental and watching experience into something for the long haul. In the meantime, rental policies at Blockbuster's brick-and-mortar stores will be liberalized, with more "reasonable" rental fees and late fees, and an eventual phasing out of late fees altogether.

"This is a brave new world we're about to enter," Hastings said, "and Blockbuster is ready for the challenge. I am quite proud to head up the efforts to help transform Blockbuster Video into a company that will embrace the change and innovation of the Internet and take it into the future.

"As record labels and music companies have embraced the digital revolution," Antioco said, "by selling downloadable MP3 files on artist and label websites, so must home video, and Blockbuster is primed for the new opportunities that the Internet will provide us."

* * *

"AT&T Offers $62 Billion in Cash, Stock, and Assumed Debt and Preferred Equity For MediaOne Group", PRNewswire, April 22, 1999 **  
  
**NEW YORK - AT &T today announced that it has submitted an offer to purchase all of MediaOne Group for $87.375 per share in cash and stock for a total value of $58 billion, based on today’s closing price of AT&T’s stock of $59.50, not including $4.5 billion in assumed debt and preferred equity. The company said it will pay $30.85 in cash plus .95 shares of AT&T stock for every MediaOne share.  
  
In addition, the cash portion of the AT&T offer will be increased to offset up to a 10 percent decline from AT&T’s closing stock price of $57.00 per share on April 21, 1999. This will maintain a value of $85.00 for every MediaOne share if AT&T’s stock trades between $57 and $51.30 per share. If AT&T’s stock price increases, MediaOne shareowners will enjoy the full upside appreciation. AT&T said the stock portion of the offer will be tax-free to MediaOne shareowners.  
  
In a letter to MediaOne Chairman and CEO Charles M. Lillis, AT&T Chairman and CEO C. Michael Armstrong said AT&T’s offer is clearly a superior value for MediaOne shareowners in terms of value and growth prospects for the combined companies.  
  
AT&T’s offer represents a premium of 17 percent, or $8.6 billion, over the current value of Comcast’s offer and 26 percent over MediaOne’s current trading price. Unlike Comcast, AT&T is offering cash, as well as stock, and the cash portion of the offer is structured to protect MediaOne shareowners against some fluctuation in AT&T’s stock price. In addition, the shares AT&T is offering have full voting rights and pay a cash dividend, while Comcast’s shares issued in the proposed merger do not.  
  
“This acquisition is not only an investment in AT&T’s future,” said Armstrong. “It’s also an investment in the future of a competitive communications market in the U.S.  
  
“Combining AT&T and MediaOne means that far more American consumers will have a choice in local phone service,” he added. “Together, AT&T and MediaOne will bring broadband video, voice and data services to more communities, more quickly than we could separately or, in MediaOne’s case, with any other company.  
  
“Ever since the Telecommunications Act of 1996 was passed, Americans have been waiting for someone to run another wire to their homes to give them a choice in local phone service and deliver the advanced services they expect in a competitive market,” Armstrong said. “Our earlier acquisition of Tele-Communications, Inc. and now our proposal for MediaOne Group should leave no doubt that we are serious about doing just that.”  
  
AT&T intends to divest over a period of time certain non-strategic MediaOne assets currently valued at approximately $18 to $20 billion. The company also has plans to continue its aggressive efforts to reduce overall AT&T operating expenses by an additional $2 billion by the end of the 2000. The majority of the expense reductions will be in network costs, SG&A expenses, lower access fees paid to local exchange companies for handling long distance calls and more streamlined operations and systems. Additional savings in the range of at least $175 to 200 million will result from synergies in combining the former TCI and MediaOne cable operations.  
  
AT&T plans to issue 626 million additional shares in the transaction. The company expects dilution to earnings per share of approximately 30 cents in the first full year of combined operation, resulting from additional shares outstanding and the cost of financing, partially offset by expense reductions and synergies. Following the purchase of MediaOne, cash earnings, which is net income per share plus acquisition goodwill, will decline by less than 10 cents per share. In addition, the acquisition over time will accelerate earnings, cash flow and revenue growth. It also will reduce the percentage of AT&T’s revenues that come from slower growth businesses such as consumer long distance.  
  
AT&T said it is confident in its ability to complete the acquisition by the end of 1999, which is at least as quickly as the proposed Comcast merger. Because AT&T believes the transaction will advance the public interest by increasing competition, the company does not expect to encounter significant legal obstacles. AT&T also said it anticipates no difficulty in arranging financing for the cash portion of its offer and expects to have $30 billion of financing in place by April 30. Chase Manhattan Bank and Goldman Sachs Credit Partners L.P. already have each committed to provide $5 billion of the financing.  
  
With the acquisition of MediaOne, AT&T’s owned and operated cable systems will pass approximately 26.5 million households, giving AT&T a significant presence in 18 of the top 20 markets. The addition of MediaOne’s cable systems will expand AT&T’s national coverage in key markets such as Boston, Atlanta, Richmond and Los Angeles.  
  
In addition, AT&T will hold minority interests in a number of cable systems, including those owned by Time Warner Entertainment. AT&T will not be the operator of these systems. The company said that following its acquisition of MediaOne, it looks forward to strengthening its existing relationship with Time Warner in a way that accelerates the ability of the companies to deliver cable telephony and data services.  
  
AT&T plans to combine MediaOne’s Denver-based headquarters with AT&T’s Denver-headquartered Broadband & Internet Services business unit. Both groups will report to Leo J. Hindery, Jr., president and chief executive officer of the company’s Broadband & Internet Services unit.  
  
The company said Amos B. Hostetter participated in the development of AT&T’s offer for MediaOne. Hostetter is former chairman and CEO of Continental Cablevision, and former CEO of U.S. West Media Group, the two predecessors of MediaOne. Upon completion of the transaction, Hostetter will become non-executive chairman of AT&T’s Broadband & Internet Services unit, complementing the leadership of Hindery. Following completion, Hostetter also will join AT&T’s Board of Directors. In addition, AT&T will invite a current MediaOne board member to join the AT&T board.  
  
AT&T’s advisors on the transaction are Goldman, Sachs & Co. and Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz.

* * *

"Charlize Theron, Miramax, Part Ways," by Army Archerd, _Variety_ , May 30, 1999

Charlize Theron and John Frankenheimer have announced that they have "mutually parted ways" before shooting was to begin on Frankenheimer's new film, _Reindeer Games_ , for Miramax. Apparently, word came from current Miramax head Daniel Battsek that Theron's appearance was "unsatisfactory", because of her recently giving birth to twins Edward and Olivia, and the rate of her losing her baby weight was not fast enough for the company.

Theron had apparently switched to a vegan diet and been exercising regularly after the birth to speed the process up, and yet it was not considered enough. As a result, Theron's role in the film will now be played by Shannen Doherty, and she will be appearing opposite Miramax regular Ben Affleck. "We wish nothing but the best for Charlize, and are hoping to work with her for real in the future," Frankenheimer's statement reads.

* * *

"The Battle of Miramax," by Adam Dawtrey, _Variety_ , July 1, 1999

Last night, _Inside Edition_ aired a searing indictment against Miramax Films, current CEO Daniel Battsek, and director John Frankenheimer, regarding the sacking of Charlize Theron from Frankenheimer's upcoming film _Reindeer Games_ , due to beliefs that she was too heavy to play the intended role.

According to the episode, Theron's husband, Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain, was absolutely livid when he heard of the firing, launching into a vicious tirade against Miramax. Unable to be calmed down, he had to be physically restricted from calling Battsek's office to call him out, or launching any kind of legal battle.

The whole affair also appears to have severely demoralized the actual cast and crew, with Frankenheimer admitting in an interview that he was not supportive of Battsek's decision. "Charlize is a great woman to work with, and I've always considered her a friend. Daniel strongarmed me into doing this." Apparently, Doherty and Affleck also became thoroughly sick of the entire mess, with Affleck vowing onset to take a hiatus from movies, especially Miramax films, for the immediate future.

The whole brouhaha comes at a bad time for Miramax, already suffering a massive black eye after the exposure of co-founder and former CEO Harvey Weinstein's alleged history of sexual assault against dozens of other women over the years. Battsek had been chosen in order to give Miramax a clean slate and right the ship, but the public brushup may only further alienate moviegoers from Miramax's output. "They really need a win to get people's minds off of Harvey. If this is how they want to go about it, they're probably not going to make it."

* * *

"Springbok Productions: Kurt Cobain and Charlize Theron Form New Hollywood Company", by Adam Dawtrey, _Variety_ , July 11, 1999 **  
  
**Today, Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain, his new wife, actress Charlize Theron, along with veteran film producer Jennifer Todd, announced the creation of a new production company. Dubbed Springbok Productions, in paying tribute to Theron's South African roots, the new company is "intended to be a massive new force in the production of films and television programs, as well as the potential for staged musicals, music albums, amusement park attractions, book publishing and Internet content," as Todd explains it. "We intend to stake out a new frontier in Hollywood, to officially help bring it all into the new millennium and help it evolve."  
  
If you think you've heard something like this before, you likely have. Only five years ago, Steven Spielberg, former Disney executive Jeffrey Katzenberg, and music mogul David Geffen announced the creation of DreamWorks SKG, which was the first new major studio formed since the Great Depression, and promised much of the same ambitious goals, that it would bring about a new paradigm shift in Hollywood. But while DreamWorks certainly has achieved some noteworthy successes during its first few years (among them _Amistad, Saving Private Ryan, Antz, The Prince of Egypt_ and the new film _American Beauty_ ), its path has been incredibly rocky, as every success has been greeted with at least two more setbacks, and much of Spielberg's grand vision has yet to come to fruition. In fact, just recently, it announced that it was unable to secure financing for a long bandied-about new studio lot for itself in Marina del Rey, California, which was set to go online in 2001.  
  
Springbok, for one thing, has also announced that it has reached enormous capitalization worth billions of dollars from Cobain's Nirvana royalties, his and Theron's investment in the Planet Hollywood chain, and personal investments by notable tech, sports and business luminaries such as Paul Allen (also a DreamWorks investor), Steve Wozniak, Dan Marino, Irving Azoff, Richard Branson, and so on, and has also officially bought the abandoned DreamWorks lot property and plan for $750 million, and plan to keep to the original scheduled timeline. It also has announced its debut project, a live action film adaptation of the Japanese animated film _Ghost in the Shell_ , with Sony's Columbia Pictures, which will come out in early 2001.  
  
Of course, some are skeptical of whether Springbok can actually deliver on its bold promises. For much of the last decade, Hollywood has been overrun by so-called "vanity shingles", in which actors set up their own production companies and set development deals with major studios for office space and money, similar to the old studio contract system of yesteryear, and hope to develop hits together. Some such companies, like Mel Gibson's Icon Productions and Tom Cruise's own Cruise/Wagner Productions, have reaped enormous benefits and success with their studio partners. But more recently, such pacts have led to either massive flops, or no projects being greenlit at all. Most recently and infamously, _Clueless_ star Alicia Silverstone's production company, First Kiss, was forced to fold after its first film with Sony, _Excess Baggage_ , failed spectacularly at the box office. Former Walt Disney Studios head Joe Roth (having left to form his own production/financing company) announced last year that Disney would shred dozens of vanity deals it no longer considered valid business. "Springbok is coming out at a time when vanity deals are basically considered an absolute money pit. This is likely to be more of the same, and its founders have no experience in the field. He's the biggest rock star in the world, and she's a promising actress who has yet to have a breakout role. Not exactly management material, or worth much in running a company."  
  
Todd is nonplussed at this charge. "Springbok is definitely not a vanity deal." She stresses that unlike these deals, the company will not take up space on an existing lot owned by a major studio, and will not be tied to one distributor, but rather plan to cultivate relationships with all of them. She also says that Springbok is casting a wide net to find experienced people to run the company's planned various divisions, among industry titans, and that "whatever experience we don't naturally have or can't find that are free agents, we'll buy them in acquisitions. I also am coming onboard as the CEO, who will run the actual business, and leave Kurt and Charlize free to tend to their own careers. Simply put, we have far more in common with the likes of Mel Gibson than Alicia Silverstone."  
  
There are other factors that could be obstacles to Springbok's potential success. By now, there is a massive debate in American society as to whether violent media influences acts of violence in real life. Films, TV shows, video games and music have been criticized by figures like Democratic Senator Joseph Lieberman and Vice President Al Gore and his wife Tipper for "excessively glorifying" violence and helping young people be inspired to commit atrocities. The recent massacre at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, back in April, brought intense scrutiny on all these factors. So-called "first-person shooters" like _Doom_ and _Quake_ have targeted as "murder simulators" by their critics. Warner Bros.' _The Matrix_ was criticized for being a direct link to the shooting. The film _South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut_ was similarly maligned, especially when reports came that young moviegoers would buy tickets for the much tamer _Wild Wild West_ and instead sneak to see the R-rated animated feature. A recent joint North American tour by Nirvana and controversial "shock rocker" Marilyn Manson was cancelled because both bands were targeted as directly inciting violent acts with their lyrics, a charge that Manson and Cobain both angrily deny. And David Fincher and 20th Century Fox's film _Fight Club_ was lambasted by many as a grim, nihilistic film advocating for anarchy and violent revolt against society. At a time when the entertainment industry is facing all this harsh scrutiny, and debates about influence and potential censorship of media have become a major talking point to debate, along with gun control, security measures and dress codes, Springbok are effectively racing into fierce headwinds.  
  
As to whether Springbok will become what its founders promised, the outlook is not so clear. "It could potentially become everything they say it will," _Los Angeles Times_ film critic Kenneth Turan states. "If managed right, it could possibly become a game changer at a time when Hollywood really needs one. On the other hand, it could basically end up like all these vanity shingles and be considered a huge embarrassment. You never know. Maybe they'll pull it off."

* * *

"Tour De France-More Of The Same," _Sports Illustrated_ , August 5, 1999

Last year was considered a very troublesome year for the Tour de France. Last year, the entire Festina team was caught with performance-enhancing drugs when one of their couriers was stopped at the border, complete with obvious contraband. There was also the fact that it was their fastest-ever completed tour, with speed records smashed thoroughly, making it clear that the reason why was because of doping.

The organizers and the cycling events organizing head UCI was deeply aware of this, so they set the '99 edition as a "Tour of Renewal", saying that they were taking doping seriously, they would punish infractions, and most of all, that they really step in to make it a slower tour and show the world that the cyclists were not doping.

So much for renewal. Much of the attention was focused on the small, understaffed American team sponsored by the United States Postal Service, who were actively seeking to challenge the European teams for dominance in the Tour and score a podium place. The team's leader, Lance Armstrong of Austin, Texas, who had recently battled testicular cancer, especially wanted this Tour to make a point that his position as a cyclist was still secure, even after his near-death experience. This was a tall order. Armstrong, in the late '80s and early '90s, was known as an incredibly dominant one-day racer, but not for the long haul. In fact, most of his previous Tours, he had not even finished. And when he tentatively started getting back into the swing after he was in remission, he definitely did not seem to be performing anywhere close to his past power.

Then, suddenly, things changed. Armstrong and US Postal took the lead early on and never let go. The man who had never been a climber, never a marathoner, was enduring completely... _and_ completely destroying speed records. In fact, this was the fastest-ever Tour. Clearly, something did not add up. For a "Tour of Renewal", pledging to be drug-free, beating '98's speed record was quite suspicious, especially Armstrong's performance. Before the Tour was over, with Armstrong in the Yellow Jersey, there was a sign these potential worries were well-placed. Armstrong tested positive for a larger-than-usual presence of cortisone in his body, and cortisone is on the list of banned performance-enhancing substances. Armstrong claimed that the presence of cortisone was simply from an ointment he'd been prescribed to treat saddle sores.

Armstrong and US Postal provided the cream in question, and a prescription to seemingly verify his story. However, UCI looked further into the affair, and found that the prescription had been backdated, and had in fact only been asked for at the time of the drug test. UCI then dove further and found that US Postal and its doctor, Michele Ferrari, were engaging in using cortisone and blood doping in order to boost their performance. As a result, Armstrong's victory was invalidated, as was US Postal's entire run. But, there was no actual winner of the '99 Tour, as every cyclist who'd actually finished had done so by doping. Simply put, the "Tour of Renewal" was an absolute disaster.

"I don't understand what they were trying to pull," Irish cycling reporter David Walsh says. "How did Armstrong actually believe that he could get away with it? Of course he couldn't actually finish the Tour, let alone win, after surviving testicular cancer. You simply can't be the same man you were before, you can't put out the same power. The fact that his initial post-cancer races were such a disaster naturally made his Tour performance suspect from the start. If he thought that he could somehow bring out this fairy tale ending that the public would lap up, then he clearly does not live in the realm of reality. It just doesn't work that way."

* * *

"Making a Media Giant: Viacom to Buy CBS, Forming 2nd Largest Media Company," by Lawrie Mifflin, _The New York Times_ , September 8, 1999 **  
  
**Viacom Inc. said yesterday that it would acquire the CBS Corporation for $37.3 billion in the biggest media merger ever, creating the world's second-largest media company after Time Warner Inc.  
  
For Viacom and its 76-year-old chairman, Sumner M. Redstone, who will run the combined companies if the merger is completed, the deal adds a major broadcast television network, 15 CBS-owned television stations and the nation's biggest group of radio stations to a media portfolio that includes the highly profitable MTV, VH1 and Nickelodeon cable networks, the Paramount film studio and the Blockbuster video-rental chain.  
  
CBS's 56-year-old chief executive, Mel Karmazin, will become Mr. Redstone's second-in-command and heir apparent, as president and chief operating officer, and all units of Viacom and CBS will report to him.  
  
The acquisition signals another change in the ownership of the three once-independent major broadcasting networks. NBC has been owned by General Electric since 1985, and ABC was bought in 1995 by The Walt Disney Company for $19 billion -- the previous record for a media deal.  
  
And perhaps even more significant than Viacom's ascension to second-largest media company - with a stock market value of about $72 billion, compared with Time Warner's $80.5 billion - Viacom could very likely emerge as the world's largest seller of advertising.  
  
Besides the television and radio properties, Viacom's acquisition includes CBS's pending deal to acquire the billboard giant Outdoor Systems Inc. Analysts estimate that a combined Viacom-CBS would generate $11 billion a year in advertising revenue -- nearly twice that of the current leader, Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, which sells $5.8 billion in annual advertising.  
  
Viacom's cable networks are popular with children, teen-agers and young adults, while CBS's emphasis on TV news and prime-time fare like _Touched by an Angel_ , have tended to attract older viewers. Bringing the children's program _Rugrats_ and the sophisticated news magazine _60 Minutes_ under a single corporate name plate, is meant to offer advertisers one-stop shopping to reach audiences of all ages.  
  
''We will be a global leader in virtually every facet of the wonderful, diverse media and entertainment industry,'' predicted Mr. Redstone, who has built Viacom into one of the world's most successful entertainment companies since acquiring it 12 years ago.  
  
In 1987, Mr. Redstone was known primarily as an owner of movie theaters, and Viacom was primarily a cable company. He propelled the company into the media big leagues with Viacom's $10 billion acquisition of Paramount in 1994, after a lengthy takeover battle with the media mogul Barry Diller.  
  
CBS shareholders will get 1.085 class B shares of Viacom stock for each share of CBS, an offer worth about $50.93 a share at yesterday's closing price of Viacom stock, and including no premium above CBS's current market value. Viacom will assume about $1.4 billion of CBS debt.  
  
Both companies' stock prices rose on yesterday's news. CBS gained $1.75, to $50.6875; Viacom's class B shares rose $1.875, to $46.9375. And analysts almost universally lauded the deal, not just for its size and global scope, but for the way it would bring together the young-skewing audiences of Viacom's cable operations and the older audiences of CBS.  
  
As Fred Moran, an analyst at the investment firm ING Baring, said, ''You can literally pick an advertiser's needs and market that advertiser across all the demographic profiles, from Nickelodeon with the youngest consumers to CBS with some of the oldest consumers, and with the Country Music Network, the Nashville Network, MTV and VH1 right in the middle.''  
  
The boards of both companies unanimously approved the deal, but CBS shareholders must still vote on the merger. Mr. Redstone has control of Viacom's class A stock, which are the voting shares. The companies expect the deal to be completed early next year, assuming the Federal Communications Commission signs off on the merger.  
  
Founded in 1928 by William S. Paley as the Columbia Broadcasting System, CBS went on to become the premier television network in both news, with Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite, and entertainment. In 1963, CBS owned all top 10 daytime TV shows and 9 of the top 10 evening programs. The network suffered a decline in the 1980's and early 90's under Laurence Tisch, whose Loew's Corporation was CBS's largest shareholder.  
  
In 1995, Westinghouse Electric bought CBS for $5.4 billion, eventually selling other units to become strictly a media company and renaming itself the CBS Corporation.  
  
CBS is enjoying a rebound. The network is No. 1 in household ratings and total viewers; also in the last year it has proved nimble in deals with Internet companies.  
  
The new company will be called Viacom, but the CBS television network and all its units will continue to be called CBS. And viewers will not suddenly find music videos appearing on CBS; indeed, both Mr. Redstone and Mr. Karmazin said yesterday that CBS News, CBS Entertainment and CBS Sports would continue to be run much the way they have been, with Leslie Moonves remaining in charge.  
  
But it could mean, for example, that Viacom's MTV and VH1 music cable networks will find new outlets for their programming in CBS's rock radio stations around the country - just as CBS's own cable networks, Country Music Television and the Nashville Network, now provide programs for some of CBS's country-music radio stations. And each will heavily promote its sister networks.  
  
And promotional spots on MTV or VH1 could induce some younger viewers to sample shows on CBS, helping the broadcast network eventually attract more of the 18-to-49-year-old audience that advertisers pay the biggest premiums to reach.  
  
The merger could also mean that Nickelodeon - the most profitable children's network, whether broadcast or cable - would provide programming to help bolster CBS's little-watched Saturday-morning children's lineup.  
  
On the new-media front, several of Viacom's networks, notably MTV and Nickelodeon, have well-established and very popular Web sites. Mr. Karmazin said yesterday that it was his goal to make Viacom-CBS one of the leading new-media companies, aided by the promotional opportunities available through the company's television and radio networks and its outdoor advertising unit.  
  
The new company will have to divest itself of some broadcast properties, or seek waivers from Federal regulations. Mr. Redstone and Mr. Karmazin said they would visit the FCC today to appeal for changes in certain rules.  
  
The most important to them is the cap on television station ownership, which restricts any company to owning stations that reach no more than 35 percent of the country's population.  
  
With Viacom's 19 television stations and CBS's 15, the combined company would own stations in 18 of the nation's top 20 markets and reach 41 percent of the population. If the cap is not raised, Mr. Karmazin said, the company would probably sell some stations to comply with the regulations.  
  
Viacom also owns half of the UPN broadcast network, with Chris-Craft, and under FCC rules that stake must be reduced to less than one-third -- unless a waiver is granted.  
  
For the CBS television network, an important Viacom asset is Paramount, the studio that produced the film _Titanic_ and the television show _Frasier_ on NBC, and will now undoubtedly create more television shows for CBS.  
  
But Mr. Moonves said yesterday that he saw the model being more like the Fox network's relationship with its corporate sibling, 20th Television, than like ABC's dealings with Disney. Disney recently combined management of its TV studio and broadcast network, with the goal of producing more hits for ABC.  
  
Fox's sister studio, in contrast, produces shows for all the networks, and Mr. Moonves said he expected Paramount would do the same.  
  
NBC is now the only one of the six major broadcast networks without a major production studio in its corporate family.  
  
Analysts and television industry executives were struck by Mr. Redstone's solution to what had been a longstanding problem at Viacom, the absence of a clear successor to the founder.  
  
Although Mr. Redstone has no plans to retire, the older man said the merger was contingent upon Mr. Karmazin's consent to become his heir apparent.  
  
That decision forced Mr. Redstone's two longtime deputies, Philippe Dauman and Thomas Dooley, to resign. Both men urged him to make the deal, Mr. Redstone said, and will stay on the new Viacom's board, but not as employees.  
  
Mr. Karmazin and Mr. Redstone said they expected no layoffs to result from the merger.  
  
On Wall Street, Mr. Karmazin is admired for combining tight financial controls with a willingness to take entrepreneurial bets. Analysts note that he has sharply improved the financial performance of the CBS TV stations and affiliates, while also aggressively increasing the CBS investments in Internet properties.  
  
Jessica Reif Cohen, an analyst with Merrill Lynch, and Christopher Dixon, an analyst at Paine Webber, both predicted that the new company would be one of the fastest-growing media companies in the world because of its blend of assets and its relatively low debt, which would enable it to invest in expanding its assets, acquiring new ones or buying back stock.  
  
Viacom and CBS, other analysts noted, are following the lead of earlier deals like Disney's purchase of Capital Cities/ABC Inc. in 1995, and Time Warner's acquisition of Turner Broadcasting, also in 1995. The merger impulse is driven by the belief that at a time of increasing uncertainty in the media business, there is an advantage in owning both the programming and the distribution networks.

* * *

"MCI WorldCom and Sprint Create Preeminent Global Communications Company for 21st Century," PRNewswire, October 5, 1999 **  
  
**CLINTON, MS, and KANSAS CITY, MO — MCI WorldCom (NASDAQ: WCOM) and Sprint (NYSE: FON, PCS) today announced that the boards of directors of both companies have approved a definitive merger agreement. The merger creates the preeminent global communications company for the 21st century — a dramatically more effective competitor. The combined company, to be called WorldCom, will provide a full range of services to residential and business customers on its owned, end-to-end, state-of-the-art network infrastructure. WorldCom will be a leader in the fastest growing areas of global communications services, offering innovative broadband, "all distance" services to businesses and homes, and nationwide digital wireless voice and data services.  
  
Under the agreement, each share of Sprint FON Group (NYSE:FON) will be exchanged for $76.00 of MCI WorldCom common stock, subject to a collar. In addition, each share of Sprint PCS Group (NYSE: PCS) will be exchanged for one share of a new WorldCom PCS tracking stock and 0.1547 shares of MCI WorldCom common stock. The terms of the WorldCom PCS tracking stock will be equivalent to those of Sprint PCS and will track the performance of the company’s PCS business. The total value of the transaction is approximately $129 billion ($115 billion in equity and $14 billion in debt and preferred stock). The merger will be tax-free to shareholders and accounted for as a purchase.  
  
The transaction is expected to be essentially non-dilutive to WorldCom’s earnings per share before goodwill amortization ("cash earnings"). The combination creates significant cost savings that will allow the new company to compete aggressively in both the business and consumer markets and to aggressively invest in new technologies such as broadband access and next generation wireless.  
  
MCI WorldCom has a proven track record of identifying and realizing cost savings. The companies estimate that annual cash operating cost savings of $1.9 billion are achievable in 2001 — the first full year of operation — increasing to $3.0 billion annually by 2004. These cost savings are anticipated to result from better utilization of the combined networks and other operational savings. Capital expenditure savings of $1.3 billion a year are expected in 2001 and beyond, primarily as a result of economies of scale and procurement efficiencies.  
  
In addition to cost savings, the transaction offers the prospect of significant revenue benefits as a result of churn reduction from bundling a broader range of services, cross selling to a larger customer base and the development of new services. MCI WorldCom and Sprint have also agreed to enter into commercial business arrangements between the two companies prior to closing.  
  
WorldCom will have the capital, proven marketing strength and state-of-the-art networks to compete more effectively against the incumbent carriers, domestically and abroad. The combination of MCI WorldCom and Sprint will:

  * Generate pro forma 1999 revenues of more than $50 billion, a market enterprise value of approximately $290 billion and significant operations in more than 65 countries;
  * Offer a unique nationwide broadband access alternative to both cable and traditional telephony through a combination of Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) facilities and fixed wireless access using the combined company’s nationwide MMDS spectrum;
  * Continue to lead the industry with innovative service offerings for consumer and business customers alike in an increasingly competitive global marketplace. The combined company, operating with extensive local facilities as well as substantial scale, will have the capability to bring innovative broadband solutions to local customers in the United States and abroad; and
  * Be a formidable wireless competitor in the United States — with more than 4 million PCS subscribers, leading the industry in growth; and 1.7 million paging and advanced messaging customers.



Bernard J. Ebbers, president and chief executive officer of MCI WorldCom, said, "The economics of the combination are particularly compelling and WorldCom will have the capital, proven marketing strength and state-of-the-art networks to compete more effectively against the incumbent carriers domestically and abroad. Sprint’s ability to offer a full range of wireline and wireless services will benefit our customers and fuel sustained double-digit revenue and earnings growth. The merger with Sprint is particularly timely as wireless communications emerges as a critical component of full service offerings. Increasingly, wireless will be used for Internet access and data services, two areas in which both companies excel. Gaining an all-digital nationwide footprint with common technology and spectrum that delivers next generation capabilities is of paramount importance."  
  
William T. Esrey, chairman and chief executive officer of Sprint, said, "From building the first nationwide fiber optic network to creating the nation’s first all-digital, nationwide PCS wireless system, Sprint has been a pioneer in the communications industry. Sprint has utilized technology and marketing innovation to deliver value to consumers and businesses worldwide. Sprint ION will enable the merged company to provide end-to-end integrated broadband services for the home, as well as for the business market, as an alternative to traditional cable and telephony providers. The combined strengths of WorldCom and Sprint will allow us to bring customers a suite of fully integrated broadband and wireless all-distance services providing consumers and businesses with exciting competitive alternatives."  
  
The merged company will be led by the industry’s most experienced, skilled and respected management team. The management team will consist of top executives from MCI WorldCom and Sprint. Upon completion of the merger, Mr. Esrey will become chairman of WorldCom. Mr. Ebbers will be president and chief executive officer of the combined company. The board of directors of the combined company will have 16 members, 10 from MCI WorldCom and six from Sprint. WorldCom will maintain significant operations in Sprint locations, including major operations in Kansas City.  
  
The merger is subject to the approvals of MCI WorldCom and Sprint stockholders as well as approvals from the Federal Communications Commission, the Justice Department, various state government bodies and foreign antitrust authorities. The companies anticipate that the merger will close in the second half of 2000. The actual number of shares of MCI WorldCom common stock to be exchanged for each Sprint FON Group share will be determined based on the average trading prices prior to the closing, but will not be less than 0.9400 shares (if MCI WorldCom’s average stock price exceeds $80.85) or more than 1.2228 shares (if MCI WorldCom’s average stock price is less than $62.15).  
  
Salomon Smith Barney acted as financial advisor and Cravath, Swaine & Moore acted as legal counsel to MCI WorldCom. Warburg Dillon Read LLC, a subsidiary of UBS AG, acted as financial advisor and King & Spalding acted as legal counsel to Sprint.  
  
Sprint is a global communications company — at the forefront of integrating long distance, local and wireless communications services. Sprint built and operates the United States’ first nationwide all-digital, fiber-optic network and is a leader in advanced data communications services. Sprint has $17 billion in annual revenues and serves more than 20 million business and residential customers. Sprint is traded on the NYSE under FON and PCS.  
  
MCI WorldCom is a global leader in communications services with 1998 revenues of more than $30 billion and established operations in more than 65 countries encompassing the Americas, Europe and the Asia-Pacific regions. MCI WorldCom is a premier provider of facilities-based and fully integrated local, long distance, international and Internet services. MCI WorldCom’s global networks, including its state-of-the-art pan-European network and transoceanic cable systems, provide end-to-end high-capacity connectivity to more than 40,000 buildings worldwide. MCI WorldCom is traded on NASDAQ under WCOM.

* * *

"Spacey Dreams of Darin Biopic," by Army Archerd, _Variety_ , December 20, 1999 **  
  
**Kevin Spacey is not afraid to tackle any role — how about playing Bobby Darin? I heard about Spacey’s involvement in the Darin biopic on Monday, which was the 26th anniversary of Darin’s death. He was only 37 when his heart gave out following open heart surgery. The film had long been in the works at WB, where it had gone into turnaround, before Spacey’s involvement. Arthur Friedman has been working on the pic 12-1/2 years and will produce, with Bob Rehme as exec producer. Barry Levinson had been set to direct, with a script by _Sleepers_ author Lorenzo Carcaterra and figures like Johnny Depp or Leonardo DiCaprio approached for the role. Spacey has also had talks with Darin’s son, Dodd, on the biopic. First on Spacey’s agenda is _Pay It Forward_ , in which he co-stars with Helen Hunt and _The Sixth Sense_ youngster, Haley Joel Osment. This pic, too, is evidence that Spacey is not afraid to tackle anything: in the story, he is a school teacher and burn victim … Arthur E. Friedman and Esparza Katz have _Price of Glory_ from New Line going into release March 31 from a script by Phil Berger. ****

* * *

"America Online and Time Warner Will Merge to Create World's First Internet-Age Media and Communications Company", PRNewswire, January 10, 2000 **  
**  
_AOL Time Warner Will Be Premier Global Company Delivering Branded Information, Entertainment and Communications Across Rapidly Converging Media Platforms and Changing Technology_  
  
 _Will Provide Far-Reaching Benefits to Consumers By Speeding Growth of Interactive Medium_  
  
 _Will Accelerate Availability of Broadband Interactive Services Offering Vast Array of World-Class Content_  
  
 _Will Drive Growth of Advertising and E-Commerce Across Unmatched Combination of Leading Brands_  
  
 _Companies Also Announce New Marketing, Commerce, Content and Promotional Agreements_ **  
  
**DULLES, VA and NEW YORK, NY-- America Online, Inc. [NYSE:AOL] and Time Warner Inc. [NYSE:TWX] today announced a strategic merger of equals to create the world's first fully integrated media and communications company for the Internet Century in an all-stock combination valued at $350 billion.  
  
To be named AOL Time Warner Inc. with combined revenues of over $30 billion, this unique new enterprise will be the premier global company delivering branded information, entertainment and communications services across rapidly converging media platforms.  
  
The merger will combine Time Warner's vast array of world-class media, entertainment and news brands and its technologically advanced broadband delivery systems with America Online's extensive Internet franchises, technology and infrastructure, including the world's premier consumer online brands, the largest community in cyberspace, and unmatched e-commerce capabilities. AOL Time Warner's unparalleled resources of creative and journalistic talent, technology assets and expertise, and management experience will enable the new company to dramatically enhance consumers' access to the broadest selection of high-quality content and interactive services.  
  
By merging the world's leading Internet and media companies, AOL Time Warner will be uniquely positioned to speed the development of the interactive medium and the growth of all its businesses. The new company will provide an important new broadband distribution platform for America Online's interactive services and drive subscriber growth through cross-marketing with Time Warner's pre-eminent brands.  
  
AOL Time Warner's brands will include AOL, _Time,_ CNN, CompuServe, Warner Bros., New Line Cinema, Netscape, _Sports Illustrated, People,_ HBO, ICQ, AOL Instant Messenger, AOL MovieFone, TBS, TNT, Cartoon Network, Digital City, Warner Music Group, Spinner, Winamp, _Fortune,_ AOL.COM, _Entertainment Weekly,_ and Looney Tunes. In addition to fully integrating its brands into a digital environment and bringing them closer to consumers, AOL Time Warner will have a wealth of creative resources to develop products specifically suited to interactive media.  
  
Under the terms of a definitive merger agreement approved by unanimous votes at meetings of each company's board of directors, Time Warner and America Online stock will be converted to AOL Time Warner stock at fixed exchange ratios. The Time Warner shareholders will receive 1.5 shares of AOL Time Warner for each share of Time Warner stock they own. America Online shareholders will receive one share of AOL Time Warner stock for each share of America Online stock they own. The merger will be effected on a tax-free basis to shareholders. When complete, America Online's shareholders will own approximately 55% and Time Warner's shareholders will own approximately 45% of the new company. The stock will be traded under the symbol AOL on the New York Stock Exchange.  
  
The merger will be accounted for as a purchase transaction and is expected to be accretive to America Online's cash earnings per share before the amortization of goodwill. This transaction is subject to certain closing conditions, including regulatory approvals and the approval of America Online and Time Warner shareholders, and is expected to close by the end of the year. Mr. Ted Turner, Vice Chairman of Time Warner, has agreed to vote his Time Warner shares, representing approximately 9% of the company's outstanding common stock, in favor of the merger.  
  
Steve Case, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of America Online, will become Chairman of the Board of the new company. Gerald M. Levin, Time Warner's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, will become AOL Time Warner's Chief Executive Officer. As Chairman, Mr. Case will play an active role in helping to build and lead AOL Time Warner, focusing particularly on the technological developments and policy initiatives driving the global expansion of the interactive medium. As Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Levin will set the company's strategy, working closely with Mr. Case, and will oversee the management of the company. Mr. Levin will report to the board consisting of 16 members, with eight appointed by each of the current America Online and Time Warner boards.  
  
Mr. Turner will become Vice Chairman of AOL Time Warner. Time Warner President Richard Parsons and America Online President and Chief Operating Officer Bob Pittman will be co-Chief Operating Officers of AOL Time Warner. J. Michael Kelly, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of America Online, will become the new company's Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President. A four-person integration committee, composed of Messrs. Pittman; Parsons; Kenneth J. Novack, America Online's Vice Chairman; and Richard Bressler, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Time Warner Digital Media, has been formed to ensure a smooth and rapid combination of the two companies. The Committee will make its recommendations to Messrs. Case and Levin. Messrs. Parsons, Pittman and Kelly will report to Mr. Levin.  
  
Building a New Medium for the New Millennium  
  
Mr. Case said: "This is an historic moment in which new media has truly come of age. We've always said that America Online's mission is to make the Internet as central to people's lives as the telephone and television, and even more valuable, and this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to turn this promise into reality. We're kicking off the new century with a unique new company that has unparalleled assets and the ability to have a profoundly positive impact on society. By joining forces with Time Warner, we will fundamentally change the way people get information, communicate with others, buy products and are entertained - providing far-reaching benefits to our customers and shareholders.  
  
Mr. Case added: "We have tremendous respect for Jerry Levin and Time Warner management, who have built the world's pre-eminent media company and have fostered an entrepreneurial culture that will mesh well with our own. Time Warner is the first major media company to not only recognize, but also fully embrace the interactive medium. I look forward to working with them to build the most valued and respected company in the world. By mobilizing the combined creative energies and extraordinary management talent of both companies, we will bring customers around the world an unmatched array of interactive services, with enriched multi-media content and e-commerce opportunities."  
  
Mr. Levin said: "This strategic combination with AOL accelerates the digital transformation of Time Warner by giving our creative and content businesses the widest possible canvas. The digital revolution has already begun to create unprecedented and instantaneous access to every form of media and to unleash immense possibilities for economic growth, human understanding and creative expression. AOL Time Warner will lead this transformation, improving the lives of consumers worldwide."  
  
Mr. Levin added: "I look forward to partnering with Steve Case - a visionary leader of the Internet - and his impressive management team. The opportunities are limitless for everyone connected to AOL Time Warner - shareholders, consumers, advertisers, the creative and talented people who drive our success, and the global audiences we serve."  
  
Mr. Pittman said: "The value of this merger lies not only in what it is today but in what it will be in the future. We believe that AOL Time Warner will provide companies worldwide with a convenient, one-stop way to put advertising and commerce online as well as take advantage of the best in traditional marketing. We will accelerate the development of Time Warner's cable broadband assets by bringing AOL's hallmark ease-of-use to this platform. We expect America Online to help drive the growth of cable broadband audiences, and we will use our combined infrastructure and cross-promotional strengths to enhance the growth and development of both America Online and Time Warner brands around the world."  
  
Mr. Parsons said: "This is a defining event for Time Warner and America Online as well as a pivotal moment in the unfolding of the Internet age. By joining the resources and talents of these two highly creative companies, we can accelerate the development and deployment of a whole new generation of interactive services and content. The heightened competition and expanded choices this will bring about will be of great benefit to consumers. For the creative and innovative people who are the lifeblood of our companies, it means a truly exciting range of new opportunities to explore and give shape to. For our shareholders, it means we'll be able to grow in ways we couldn't have as separate companies, producing superior returns in both the short and long term."  
  
New Marketing, Commerce, Content and Promotional Agreements  
  
Separate from the merger transaction, America Online and Time Warner also announced new marketing, commerce, content and promotional agreements that will immediately expand various relationships already in place between the two companies. These include:

  * The AOL service will feature Time Warner's popular _InStyle_ magazine, expanding on the popular content Time Warner already offers AOL members from _People, Teen People, Entertainment Weekly_ and other content currently on the service.
  * CNN.com and Entertaindom.com programming will be featured prominently on various America Online services.
  * AOL members will have access to a wide range of Time Warner promotional music clips from Time Warner's unparalleled selection of popular artists.
  * Time Warner and AOL MovieFone will participate in online-offline cross-promotion of Time Warner movies and related content, including live events.
  * Broadband CNN news content will be distributed on AOL Plus, the rich media content offering designed for AOL members connecting via broadband, when it launches this spring.
  * Time Warner will offer a number of special offers exclusively for AOL members, which will include everything from discounts on magazine subscriptions to premium cable subscriptions and movie passes.
  * Building on the companies' current offline cross-promotional activities, including keywords on popular magazines like _People_ and _Teen People,_ Time Warner will dramatically expand cross-promotion of AOL in a number of their top offline media properties.
  * The popular Warner Bros. retail stores will promote the AOL service, including through the in-store distribution of AOL disks.
  * Time Warner will include AOL disks in promotional mailings and product shipments.
  * America Online will make available on Road Runner popular America Online brands and products, including AOL Instant Messenger, Digital City, AOL Search and AOL MovieFone.  
The companies also said, with respect to broadband access, that AOL Time Warner will be committed to ensuring consumer choice of ISPs and content and that they hope this merger will persuade all companies operating broadband platforms to provide consumers with real choice.



Combination Creates Full Range of Growth Opportunities  
  
In addition to today's announcements, America Online and Time Warner will have many other opportunities to combine their assets to create unique new expanded services to drive increased consumer usage, and marketing and promotion capabilities to fuel rapid growth for their shareholders and employees. These, among others, include:  
  
 _Music:_ The combination of Time Warner's prestigious music labels and roster of established stars and new artists with America Online's online marketing and e-commerce capacities will create powerful music destinations.  
  
 _Entertainment:_ America Online's AOL TV and MovieFone combined with Time Warner's cable networks and Warner Bros. movies and television will provide valuable programming, cross-promotional, and e-commerce opportunities.  
  
 _Broadband:_ AOL Time Warner's ability to offer the finest content will expand the already growing number of consumers seeking to access the Internet at high speeds via cable modem, DSL, wireless or satellite.  
  
 _News:_ AOL Time Warner will continue to enhance its online news offering with the world's most recognized and respected news media, including CNN, Time, and local all-news channels such as NY1 News.  
  
 _Technology:_ AOL Time Warner will be able to develop and leverage technology across all of the businesses, creating new opportunities to expand services and share infrastructure.  
  
 _Telephony:_ For businesses and consumers, AOL Time Warner will offer a major communications platform that combines America Online's popular instant messaging products with Time Warner's ability to offer local telephony over cable.  
  
About America Online, Inc.  
Founded in 1985, America Online, Inc., based in Dulles, Virginia, is the world's leader in interactive services, Web brands, Internet technologies, and e-commerce services. America Online, Inc. operates: two worldwide Internet services, America Online, with more than 20 million members, and CompuServe, with more than 2.2 million members; several leading Internet brands including ICQ, AOL Instant Messenger and Digital City, Inc.; the Netscape Netcenter and AOL.COM portals; the Netscape Navigator and Communicator browsers; AOL MovieFone, the nation's #1 movie listing guide and ticketing service; and Spinner Networks and NullSoft, Inc., leaders in Internet music. Through its strategic alliance with Sun Microsystems, the company develops and offers easy-to-deploy, end-to-end e-commerce and enterprise solutions for companies operating in the Net Economy.  
  
About Time Warner Inc.  
Time Warner Inc. (NYSE: TWX) is the world's leading media company. Its businesses: cable networks, publishing, music, filmed entertainment, cable and digital media.

* * *

Report: "Brooks' _The Producers_ to Be Helmed by Stroman", by Robert Simonson, _Playbill_ , January 25, 2000 **  
  
**Mel Brooks told the _Daily News_ that Susan Stroman will probably take up direction of the musical version of his classic comic film, _The Producers_. The show, which Brooks hopes to bring to Broadway in late 2000 or early 2001, was originally to be helmed by Mike Ockrent, Stroman's husband, who died in December.  
  
Mel Brooks told the _Daily News_ that Susan Stroman will probably take up direction of the musical version of his classic comic film, _The Producers_. The show, which Brooks hopes to bring to Broadway in late 2000 or early 2001, was originally to be helmed by Mike Ockrent, Stroman's husband, who died in December. "She was always going to do the choreography; it's only natural she be _The Producers_ ' director," Brooks said. The film director and actor is writing the songs for the musical and collaborating on the book with Tom Meehan. The show would likely open in Chicago, said Brooks. Nathan Lane is being sought to star.  
  
The film told the story of a couple of hapless Broadway producers who scheme to stage the worst idea for a show in history and keep the investors' money when the show flops. Their plans are spoiled, however, when the show unexpectedly becomes a hit and they are faced with the prospect of paying off countless angels whom, together, have purchased much more than 100% of the production. The original film starred Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder.  
  
Stroman is widely thought to be taking over another Ockrent project, the musical version of _The Night They Raided Minsky's_.

* * *

"WWFE Announces The Formation of the XFL, A New Professional Football League," PRNewswire, February 3, 2000

STAMFORD, CT-World Wrestling Federation Entertainment, Inc. (NASDAQ: WWF) announced today the formation of the XFL - a new professional football league that is scheduled to kickoff in February 2001.

The XFL is expected to launch with eight teams in Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Orlando, San Francisco, and Washington DC. Two additional teams will be announced at a later date.

The inaugural season is expected to feature a ten-game regular schedule played at major stadiums in each city, and will conclude with a four-team playoff, and a Championship game at a neutral site. Through subtle rule changes designed to enhance the action and speed of the game, along with technical innovations that will bring fans inside huddles and on to the sidelines, the XFL is designed to accentuate the action that football fans crave.

"The appetite for professional football continues long past the Super Bowl,'' said Vince McMahon, Chairman of WWF Entertainment, Inc. "The XFL is more than just an extension of the football season, it is a completely new product that not only fills a void for football fans, but will give the casual fan an all-access pass to a football experience unlike any other to date. The action will feature the best football players available and will be highly competitive, hard-hitting, and most importantly, fan friendly. Guaranteed.''

WWF Entertainment, Inc. has built a highly qualified team to launch the XFL. Similar to his past role with the World Wrestling Federation, Basil DeVito, President of New Business Development at World Wrestling Federation Entertainment, Inc., will oversee the day-to-day operations of the XFL. His new role will utilize his extensive television syndication, advertising, sponsorship, public relations, live event sales and pay-per-view experience. Michael Keller, a former senior executive with the start-up USFL Michigan Panthers, start-up World League of American Football, and assistant general manager with the NFL's Seattle Seahawks, as well as a former linebacker for the Dallas Cowboys, will serve as the XFL's Vice President of Football Operations. While WWF Entertainment, Inc. expects to announce broadcast and cable television contracts at a later date, the XFL has already retained Michael Weisman, a highly respected, award-winning producer whose credits include seven Super Bowls, as a broadcast production consultant.

"The XFL will attract the entire football-viewing demographic, strengthened by our unique understanding of the young, adult male audience. That, combined with our extensive experience filling venues and executing live events will help lead to the success of the XFL,'' added McMahon.

* * *

"AOL+TWX=??? Do the math, and you might wonder if this company's long-term annual return to investors can beat a Treasury bond's," by Carol J. Loomis and Christine Chen, _Fortune_ , February 7, 2000

"Frankly," wrote a J.P. Morgan securities analyst just after the AOL Time Warner merger was announced, "it is difficult to project the true potential of this new entity, but we know it is big." That statement might not get far in a logic class, but it rather nicely captures the widespread confusion about the payoff in this deal. The murkiness won't be dispelled soon. Even at Internet speed, it will take some time for the world to judge whether AOL overpaid in offering 1.5 shares of its stock for each Time Warner share, or whether Time Warner sold its impressive assets too cheaply, or whether this is truly a marriage made in heaven.

In this article, later on, we will ourselves take a stab at figuring out what this company may do for investors. But first recognize that "big" indisputably is the word for the deal by one basic measure. Even after the merger announcement had knocked AOL down in price, a pro forma AOL Time Warner had a market value of around $290 billion. That's not Microsoft, which leads the nation at about $585 billion. But it puts the new company about fifth on the market-value list, ahead of such heavyweights as IBM and Citigroup.

There's another word that applies to this transaction in a vital way: "small." In the torrent of early analysis about the merger, it was amazing how little anyone talked about earnings--real, bottom-line earnings. That could be, of course, because they are almost too measly to find. For its fiscal year, ended last June, AOL had earnings of $762 million, and for the 12 months ended in December, earnings were about $1 billion. Time Warner's 1999 results have yet to be reported, but its full-year net should be around $1.3 billion. So run a total and you have bottom-line profits for 1999 of roughly $2.3 billion. On that basis, the combined company is selling at well over 100 times earnings.

But the $2.3 billion figure is also something of a fooler: It includes very large nonrecurring gains at both companies and also, at Time Warner, some dollars slated for preferred dividends. If these items were subtracted, to get an ongoing profit figure for common shareholders, the two companies together would have bottom-line profits of under $1 billion. That makes the price/earnings multiple climb to 300.

But, hey, who cares? In both the Internet and media worlds, people seldom talk bottom-line earnings. Instead, they talk bigger figures, bearing strange, made-up names that begin with the letter "e." Here it seems that AOL and Time Warner do not speak precisely the same language. AOL reports EBITDA (e-bit-dah), which stands for earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization. Time Warner reports EBITA (e-bit-tah), which states earnings before that same list of interest, taxes, and amortization but acknowledges that depreciation--the year-by-year bookkeeping recognition of capital expenditures made earlier--is a real cost that ought to be subtracted before getting to anything called "earnings."

In this duel of "Ebs," something is clearly going to have to give when the two companies merge (assuming they make it to the altar). And here, in fact, is their plan: Jerry Levin, CEO of Time Warner--and the CEO-to-be of AOL Time Warner--says that the merged company will go along with AOL's practice and will report EBITDA. Hmmm: That means the very real and ever-present cost of depreciation--rising out of Time Warner's big spending, for example, on its cable systems--is to be ignored in getting to "earnings." The result, of course, is the highest figure you can get in choosing between the Ebs, which is convenient when you are trying to rationalize a big valuation.

In this article--we are now getting to what the merger may do for investors--FORTUNE will not focus on either of the Ebs, or on bottom-line earnings, for that matter, but will instead get down to a profit figure that a true investor trying to size up a company would indisputably want to know. This figure is profits after depreciation, interest, and taxes--items that are inescapable costs--but before amortization of goodwill, which is a bookkeeping cost that may completely lack economic reality.

By our estimate, AOL and Time Warner had about $4.2 billion of these profits last year. This figure reflects a full bookkeeping charge for taxes, though neither company actually pays much in cash taxes right now. AOL, in fact, ran up so many losses in its early years that it has $7 billion in tax-loss carry-forwards, with these set to expire from 2001 to 2019. They will keep the tax collector away in AOL Time Warner's early years. But this company has enormous growth in mind, and it should, in pretty quick order, be paying significant taxes. If that turns out to be an inaccurate prediction, the company won't have flourished: A big company that doesn't ever pay taxes is almost never a good business.

The key questions are how fast profits might grow and what a given rate of growth would mean to the investors who right now have this big bundle of $290 billion sunk in the two companies. Regardless of what numbers may dazzle you about the deal, that is the one to focus on: the market cap that the company must push up a steep hill to continue rewarding investors (a problem shared by such other highfliers as Cisco).

To start thinking about how AOL Time Warner might meet its challenge, FORTUNE postulated an average annual growth rate for profits of 15% for 15 years, an assumption carrying the thought that growth would be faster than that in the early years and then slow down. This is by no means a growth rate to be sneered at: Most large companies would kill to lock in that kind of performance over a long period. A 15% rate, in any case, would get you, in these after-tax profits we're talking about, to $34 billion (and to more than $50 billion before taxes). Those are huge amounts: For perspective, General Electric's equivalent after-tax profits last year were an estimated $12.5 billion.

In the second part of the exercise, we need to make a guess at what the market might pay for $34 billion coming out of a company that in its 15th year would look like a classy winner yet also have gained a certain maturity. Maybe the market would accord those earnings a multiple of 20. That would be a market valuation of $680 billion, against today's valuation of $290 billion. And what would that mean in terms of an annual return to investors? The stark answer is 5.8%, which an investor might not find acceptable from government bonds, much less AOL Time Warner. In fact, many analysts are saying investors will want an average annual return of 15% from this company, operating as it does in the high-risk world of the Internet. For now, at least, dividends won't be helping: The new company will pay none.

In any case, FORTUNE tried its projections out on Jerry Levin and found, unsurprisingly, that he really didn't like them. He said the growth rate we had postulated was simply too low. He didn't offer a precise alternative, but he did make the point that multiples tend to exceed projected growth rates, often considerably.

So let's cut through the math and come out with a scenario that would allow AOL Time Warner to give investors what they supposedly want: an annual return of 15%. For them to get that over the next 15 years--hold your hats--the market cap of AOL Time Warner would have to reach $2.4 trillion. Yes, $2.4 trillion. That's what $290 billion will grow to in 15 years if it rises at a rate of 15% a year. This amount, eye-popping though it is, also happens to fit nicely with the stated ambitions of Levin and AOL's boss, Steve Case, to make their company the most profitable and valuable in the world.

So now we need a scenario that would transport us to $2.4 trillion. Here's one: a 15-year growth rate in profits of 22% (to $83 billion after tax) and a multiple, in the 15th year, of 29. Can AOL Time Warner pull that off? It just doesn't seem likely. Big companies run into the law of large numbers and slow down, as if mud had clutched their feet. Getting to $2.4 trillion would simply be a prodigious feat, implying superb execution--in a very complicated company--and a trashing of every competitor that counted. It also happens that $83 billion (with goodwill stripped out, to get down to net income) would probably leave AOL Time Warner accounting for more than 10% of that year's FORTUNE 500 profits, which just doesn't seem economically feasible. (In the coming FORTUNE 500 list, no company is likely to account for as much as 4% of the group's earnings.) In short, the prospects for a 15% return to investors over the long term, from the current level of $290 billion, do not look great.

To be even discussing a distant horizon of 15 years is perhaps madcap, given that the Street's analysts are for the moment obsessed with what the company might sell at just one year out, in 2001. In mid-January, with AOL trading at about $63 a share, Ulric Weil, an analyst at the Virginia firm Friedman Billings Ramsey, took FORTUNE through his thinking that AOL Time Warner could be around $90 in 2001 (a forecast not nearly as bullish as some others around). He was going to apply an Internet multiple of 22 to AOL's estimated revenues and a media multiple of 30 to Time Warner's EBITA; take into account $2.5 billion of estimated "synergy" revenues, which he would also multiply by 22; get to a total value for the company of $500 billion; discount that by 15% to get to a present value; divide by 4.7 billion shares; and, lo, you'd have an expected price of about $90 a share.

Wait, said his listener. "Is there a logic to the multiples of 22 for revenues and 30 for EBITA?" "No," Weil hooted. "If you're looking for logic in cybercash, forget it!"

The question of whether there are going to be synergies of convergence--you will please pardon those discredited words--is, needless to say, huge, and very much a part of the murkiness that surrounds the payoff in this merger. The two companies, anticipating they'll be joined before the end of this year, have told analysts to expect about $1 billion of incremental EBITDA in 2001. The "low-hanging fruit" in this corporate orchard, says one insider, is cuts that both companies can make in advertising and direct-mail costs as they begin to exploit one another's marketing channels.

Another kind of fruit that may be harvested right away was suggested by ten partnering arrangements that the two companies announced on merger day. The first arrangement? A plan for AOL to feature Time Warner's _In Style_ magazine. To be sure, a journey to $2.4 trillion must begin with a single step, but as the announcement duly noted, other Time Warner magazines have already had such arrangements with AOL--without a merger, obviously. That raises a point often talked about in big deals: Do you really need to merge to make business arrangements that are beneficial to both sides? No, is one cynic's answer: "To drink milk, you don't need to own a cow."

On the other hand, Jeffrey Sine, a Morgan Stanley Dean Witter investment banker who has worked closely with Time Warner for many years, says he is absolutely convinced that new businesses get "unlocked" when you merge companies and get people to think creatively and cooperatively about what can be done. Amazingly, he pulls an example out of a deal usually thought of as having been a synergistic wasteland: Time Warner's purchase of Turner Broadcasting four years ago. The example is the Cartoon Network, which has 61 million subscribers and, in Sine's opinion, has grown into a $2 billion asset. This business, Sine claims, could never have become a prize had not Turner, with its Hanna-Barbera library and expertise in cable networks, gotten to close quarters with Warner Brothers, which brought Looney Tunes and animation skill to the party.

Sine thinks that the hookup of Time Warner and AOL has endless possibilities for creative thinking and that Jerry Levin, in particular, has the kind of intellect to be fascinated by the possibilities. Says Sine: "In Jerry's mind, a lot of this is, How do I get into a position to tap into the whole new areas of value creation that no one's heard of or even been thinking about?"

That was surely one of the "fuzzies"--Levin's term--motivating him to make the deal. But a dominant reason for him to talk merger at all, he says, was the premium he knew it would bring Time Warner's shareholders. These folks suffered for years after Time Inc. and Warner Communications merged in 1989, until finally the stock price took off. Levin says he was "driven" by a feeling of obligation to the stockholders and by a desire to keep on giving them good returns.

Okay, Levin has engineered a premium for his shareholders. Now, to make the merger work for investors, Case and Levin must move their $290 billion market cap to an extraordinary height. It will be like pushing a boulder up an Alp.

* * *

Interview of Meat Loaf and Jim Steinman for fan website, March 1, 2000

Q: So, you've confirmed you're going to do _Bat Out of Hell III_. Is this the last _Bat_ album, or is this going to become, like, a franchise?  
ML: It's the last one in the series, but it's not the last album Jimmy and I are doing together. But there's an incredible, high standard that a _Bat_ album has, and thus, you can only do so many of them. They really are like nothing else.  
JS: I've had ideas floating around for decades that haven't been done right. It's about time to nail them down, once and for all.  
Q: How long will it take until the album is released?  
JS: Well, when I feel that it's perfect, then it's ready.  
ML: Jim loves to fuss over every little detail, and he works on his own time. Recording _Bat II_ took two years, on and off, which made the record executives mad as hell at first. And given that he's working on that musical of his (a planned Broadway version of the hit musical _Tanz der Vampire_ ), he's only got so much time to spare, after all.  
Q: What songs should we expect to hear on this album?  
ML: I'd really like to do "It's All Coming Back To Me Now." That song was supposed to be on _Bat II_ until Jim wrote "I'd Do Anything For Love", which we both knew was going to be a hit. But I feel a bit jealous that I didn't do it first, and because Jim doesn't agree with that idea yet.  
JS: That song, I conceived it as a female song, and I honestly can't imagine it any other way. I think because of doing things like "Total Eclipse Of The Heart", I've gotten used to certain songs being done by female singers like Bonnie Tyler and Celine Dion. I was going to have a version of "Is Nothing Sacred" on Celine's album ( _Let's Talk About Love_ ), but Meat really wanted that one for the compilation. I'm not fully convinced that it was a good idea.  
Q: But is there anything else that we can imagine being reworked?  
ML: "Bad For Good" is one the fans definitely want. I'm open to taking a second pass at material of Jim's I recorded with other producers, like "Nowhere Fast." I'm also wanting to take a shot at some of the _Tanz der Vampire_ material, or to do a version of things like "Loving You's A Dirty Job." I thought the production on that sucked.  
JS: (to Meat) You know I produced that, right?  
ML: (to Steinman) That's what I said, it sucked.  
Q: If _Tanz der Vampire_ , which was massively successful in Europe, becomes big in America, do you plan to do other stage projects, Jim?  
JS: I was born to do stage musicals. _Bat Out of Hell_ was meant to originally be a musical before it was an album. I think it still could be.

* * *

"Nathan Lane Inches Closer to Starring in a Musical of _The Producers_ ", by Kenneth Jones, _Playbill_ , March 3, 2000 **  
  
**In a March 2 appearance on "The Late Show With David Letterman," Mel Brooks threw kerosene on the embers of news reports that he was wooing Nathan Lane to star in a Broadway musical version of the film comedy, _The Producers_.  
  
Brooks, a guest on the show, pulled a contract for the musical out of his pants and told Lane, who was Letterman’s guest host, to sign it. Brooks told the cheering crowd he wanted Lane to star in the planned stage musical, presumably in the role originated by Zero Mostel. Lane laughed and acted sheepish but his attitude seemed to suggest such casting was very much a possibility and he revealed that Brooks’ hope is that Martin Short would play the accountant role, originated by Gene Wilder. Brooks agreed that the hope was for Tony Award-winner Short to join Tony-winner Lane.  
  
The 1968 film comedy, written and directed by Brooks, is about a producer and an accountant who cook up a scheme to oversell shares in a new musical they know will flop. The show, a Busby Berkeley-like fantasia about Hitler, is a surprise hit. The picture’s most famous scene includes tap-dancing, goose-stepping chorus boys and girls singing "Springtime for Hitler," in which "faster pace" is rhymed with "master race."  
  
The uncharacteristic "Late Show" included guests Mario Cantone (doing Liza Minnelli and Carol Channing impersonations) and Kristin Chenoweth (singing a duet of Irving Berlin’s "You’re Just in Love" with Lane).

* * *

"Stroman to Direct Summer Reading of _Producers_ , with Lane", by Robert Simonson, Kenneth Jones, _Playbill_ , March 28, 2000 **  
  
**It looks as though Mel Brooks' wishful thinking is paying off. In recent months, Brooks has told the press he wanted Susan Stroman to direct the Broadway musical version of his film comedy, _The Producers_. Then, in a March 2 appearance on "The Late Show With David Letterman," Brooks, a guest on the show, pulled a contract for the musical out of his pants and told Nathan Lane, who was Letterman’s guest host, to sign it. Brooks told the crowd he wanted Lane to star in the planned stage musical, presumably in the role originated by Zero Mostel.  
  
Well, it looks like Brooks is getting Stroman and Lane. "We're actually going to do a reading of [Mel's] musical," Stroman told _Playbill_. "He's written the musical and lyrics and the book. Every single page is funny." Stroman added that Lane would participate in the reading, which would take place in New York in May or June. Lane's publicist confirmed the actor's involvement. Lane will star in the Roundabout Theatre Company's revival of _The Man Who Came to Dinner_ by Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman, due to begin previews begin June 27.  
  
On the "Letterman" show, Lane laughed and acted sheepish but his attitude seemed to suggest such casting was very much a possibility and he revealed that Brooks’ hope is that Martin Short would play the accountant role, originated by Gene Wilder. Brooks agreed that the hope was for Tony Award-winner Short to join Tony-winner Lane. The 1968 film comedy, written and directed by Brooks, is about a producer and an accountant who cook up a scheme to oversell shares in a new musical they know will flop. The show, a Busby Berkeley-like fantasia about Hitler, is a surprise hit. The picture’s most famous scene includes tap-dancing, goose-stepping chorus boys and girls singing "Springtime for Hitler," in which "faster pace" is rhymed with "master race."  
  
Stroman's late husband, Mike Ockrent, was originally set to helm _The Producers_. Ockrent died in December of last year.

* * *

"Artisan Deal a Real Marvel," by Michael Fleming, _Variety_ , May 16, 2000 **  
  
**_Captain America, Thor, others to hit big, small screens_ **  
  
**In a wide-ranging joint venture agreement, Artisan Entertainment and Marvel Enterprises have joined forces to turn at least 15 Marvel superhero franchises into live-action features, TV series, direct-to-video films and internet projects.  
  
Marvel franchises involved in the deal include Captain America, the red-white-and-blue shield-wielding patriot who’s headed for features, and Thor, the hammer-swinging son of Odin, who’ll be developed for a TV series.  
  
While Marvel has deals at several major studios for big-budget live action films of such franchises as _X-Men_ and _Spider-Man_ , the Artisan pact marks the most expansive deal Marvel has made, said Avi Arad, president and CEO of Marvel Studios.  
  
Arad made the deal with Amir Malin, co-chief exec officer of Artisan, with both companies sharing revenue generated from internet and films, as well as from licensing and merchandising. Each company will equally own the programming library.  
  
Both parties will coproduce, with Marvel providing the properties and developing licensing and merchandising tie-ins. Artisan will fully finance the moderate-priced fare, and distribute in both theaters and video.  
  
“Over the last year, Marvel Studios has gotten extremely aggressive in becoming the entertainment arm of Marvel Entertainment, and this joint venture shows that commitment,” said Arad. “The companies are similar in their taste for cutting-edge entertainment and the idea here is for us to develop our product so that both companies can expand rapidly.”  
  
Malin said the pairing resulted because the goals of the companies are similar. “Artisan has been all about branding in the core demographic between ages 15 and 24, a nice audience that matches perfectly with Marvel,” said Malin. “With their assets, our distribution, marketing and financing clout, this is almost like an independent studio.  
  
“There will be a huge upside for Marvel on the deals, and the Marvel brand names gives us a head start because with a project like Captain America, there is a brand awareness of probably 75%.”  
  
Aside from Captain America, Marvel and Artisan will develop features from:

  * “Black Panther,” a black Indiana Jones-style character, to which Wesley Snipes has long been attached to produce and star;
  * “Deadpool,” a mercenary uglified by an experimental cancer cure who becomes a hitman taking on the hardest jobs without a care whether he lives or dies;
  * “Iron Fist,” an orphan taught a mystical martial art which allows his first to become literally an iron weapon;
  * “Morbius,” a Nobel Prize-winning scientist who’s turned into a vampire trying to cure a rare blood disease. The bloodsucking doc will only bite evildoers, whom he stalks at night;
  * “Longshot,” a genetically-engineered marksman created as a slave in another dimension, but with special powers;
  * “Power Pack,” a family of four kids given superhuman powers by a dying alien;
  * “Mort the Dead Teenager,” an irreverent serial about a kid killed in a car crash who comes back to life;
  * and “Antman,” a scientist who can shuffle his subatomic particles to make himself the size of an ant or a giant.



Malin said there will be no change in Marvel’s existing deals at major studios, where films like “The Incredible Hulk,” “Fantastic Four,” “Silver Surfer” and “Blade 2” are in various stages of development.  
  
“Artisan is not in the business of creating $80 million to $120 million action event films and certain Marvel characters lend themselves to that and nothing but that,” said Malin. “We don’t want to develop characters that, at the end of the day, we know we won’t finance. But there are so many franchises that as we develop our first group of projects, we’ll have our eyes on other titles from the library.  
  
“Marvel cannot make this kind of deal with somebody else. It’s the most comprehensive deal I’ve worked on at Artisan, there’s a complete franchise universe here.” ****

* * *

"Questions with Charlize Theron about New Venture," _Empire_ , May 23, 2000

On what is planned for the production of _Ghost in the Shell_ : "Besides the fact that we want to be faithful and respectful of the material, we also very much want to help push the limits of visuals. Digital Domain is onboard to do the effects, and Kurt and I have gotten friendly with Jim Cameron and Stan Winston. Stan personally is going to work on the production and supervise, and Jim's company (Lightstorm Entertainment) is helping fund it."  
On what films are planned afterwards **:** "As you know, Quentin Tarantino and Kevin Smith are now taking their projects to us, though it's more a case of us merely financing and not producing in the latter case, and we plan to certainly nurture them. But it doesn't stop there. We'd like to do every genre of film, aren't choosy about whether the scripts are dazzling and brilliant or turn your brain off junk food entertainment, and want to work with all of the studios. Hire young upstart directors, or seasoned veterans like Spielberg, Scorsese, David Fincher and so on. The point is, whatever we do, it'll be projects we firmly believe in and put our weight behind completely."  
On whether Theron will only do films connected to the company: "Oh God, no! That's very presumptuous and vain. I'll do projects with other production companies, as long as I believe in the script and the director. Also, we'll also connect ourselves to films that aren't started in house by us, to give funding for, be it funding the production as a whole, or just the marketing."  
On what kind of connections and advice will Springbok will have: "Jerry Weintraub is an informal advisor, and he's helping throw his weight around. We're also making inroads with people like Jim Cameron, Sam Raimi, Rob Tapert, George Lucas, and so on. There's our manga/anime connections. We're very interested in helping bring a lot of great series to North America. In fact, because of that, we've been talking with people over at Turner Broadcasting and Cartoon Network. They're planning to launch a late night programming block for adult entertainment next year, and we want in on that, have a say in what is produced, even come up with series ourselves. Of course, they'll only take us on if _Ghost in the Shell_ succeeds."  
On where Springbok would expand to be involved in **:** "Kurt and I would like to have our fingers in the pies of television, animation, video games, Internet content, and music. Once Nirvana's Atlantic deal is over, Exploitation Records will be merged into the Springbok family. Maybe even a hand in theatrical stage productions. Not as in creating musicals or plays, but helping with the stage rights, the staging, the funding. Kurt talks about boosting stage lighting to be more like concerts, same with sound design. We'd also like to become informal advisors over theme park attractions, the way George Lucas and Steven Spielberg are with Disney and Universal. We wouldn't be picky of choosing one over the other, though. We'll invest and purchases stakes where necessary to do so. Thank goodness for the Planet Hollywood money!"  
On if there are any particular dream projects or existing series they wish to have a hand in: "Kurt and I have talked about rehabilitating the _Alien_ franchise somehow. If we grow big enough, we can go to Fox and start talking with them about it. There's also that long rumored adaptation of _The Giver_. In addition, maybe doing some kind of anthology production regarding _The Devil's Advocate_ would be interesting, to revolve around other people and their connections to John Milton."  
On how successful she imagine the company will be in its hope, dreams and projects **:** "Of course not everything will be a success. Something won't pan out for one reason or another. But I think we have a good judgment over what will work and what won't, which speak to us personally, and the people will reward that."

* * *

"Q&A: Madoff talks trading," CNN Money, May 29, 2000

_Bernie Madoff is chairman of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities, which he founded in 1960. It is one of the largest market maker companies on Wall Street. It serves other securities companies, accepting buy and sell orders from brokerage houses and executing the trades._ _Madoff Investment Securities profits from the spread, the difference between the bid price and the ask price on a stock. The company trades NASDAQ stocks and also makes a "third market" trading New York Stock Exchange stocks off the trading floor._  
  
 _CNNfn.com interviewed Bernie Madoff about trading and the state of the market at the Securities Industry Association's conference on market structure last week. Madoff is also chairman of the SIA's trading committee._  
  
Q: Are electronic communications networks going to put a lot of market makers and specialists out of business?

Madoff: No. ECNs provide a valuable, limited service. They will have some stiff competition from the NASDAQ supermontage. They're innovative people and I think they'll come up with something [in response]. The big difference is, they don't provide liquidity. We're providing liquidity on all the stocks we trade and have hundreds of millions of dollars of inventory that we are working with and have at risk.  
  
Q: But will the roll of market makers and specialists shift?  
  
Madoff: It depends on the individual firm. There may be some firms that pick up stocks, drop stocks. You'll see more proprietary trading, with greater risk capital being employed. That's been our profile forever. We still give a 5000 share guarantee on 90-odd percent of the stocks we make markets on.  
  
Q: Has the free money gone, making life riskier?  
  
Madoff: Yes, there's more risk involved in trading. But there's more volume, and there are more opportunities to make money. Market makers' profits have never been greater. When the industry moved to [trading in] sixteenths, everybody was hysterical about profitability being thrown out. We said, "Yes you'll make less per trade but you'll do a lot more trades. The bottom line? You'll benefit form this move." That's exactly what happened. Specialists never had better years. Market makers also. Some did not. But the greater preponderance did very well.  
  
Q: Your company is one of the biggest payers of order flow, paying brokerages to ship trades your way. Why?

Madoff: It's a relatively small part, maybe 20 percent, of our business today. Payment for order flow was only an issue as it related to best execution. Does inducing someone to send an order to you present a problem as far as getting the right price goes? Quite honestly that depends on the firm. You're all fiduciaries. As long as you operate in the proper fiduciary capacity, and you're dealing with a reputable firm, it wasn't a problem. Fidelity was sending us order flow. They weren't going to allow us to give them a worse execution than an order that wasn't paying for it.  
  
Q: How much are the payments for a customer's trade?  
  
Madoff: It used to be two cents a share on NASDAQ [trades] and one cent a share on listed stock. Now we pay a percentage of the spread, so it probably comes out to less than half a cent a share on average for listed, three quarters of a cent on NASDAQ. So that's relatively small. It wasn't just cash payment. There were reciprocal arrangements, people owned affiliated companies, there were partnerships, all different ways. The SEC said "These are the 11 ways we deem to be payment for order flow." Almost every firm in the country was receiving payment. And as long as the quality of execution is not altered because of payment for order flow, then that's fine.  
  
Q: Will payment for order flow ever disappear?

Madoff: No. I think it will get lower and lower as the spreads get lower and lower with decimals. No one tells a firm how they can advertise. If I want to hire salesmen to generate order flow, no one is going to object. I don't have them. So if I want to use Fidelity's salesmen and pay part of my trading profits in the form of a rebate, why shouldn't I be allowed to do it? It was characterized as this bribe and kickback and something sinister, which was very easy to do. But if your girlfriend goes to buy stockings at a supermarket, the racks that display those stockings are usually paid for by the company that manufactured the stockings. Order flow is an issue that attracted a lot of attention but is grossly overrated.  
  
Q: Don't traders get a lot of valuable information by amassing order-flow volume, though, like when limit orders provide a good picture of demand?  
  
Madoff: Whoever holds limit orders has an information advantage. But there are very strict rules that I would assume most firms comply with. There's a price that people pay to get those limit orders. We present print protection for all our limit orders, which is costly for us. But we guarantee any of the 500 brokerage firms that give us their limit orders, that they are going to get as fast an execution as if they put that somewhere else. The person who sees that order gets certain information. It's just part of the marketplace.  
  
Q: That's why institutions want to see other investors' limit orders but not reveal their own?  
  
Madoff: They don't want to disclose their own, and there's a valid reason for that. They feel that they can move markets and they don't want to tip their hand. My issue is that the public doesn't want to move markets also. And an aggregation of lots of small orders has the same impact as one large order. You would not know to tell your broker at Schwab, don't display my 200-share order. You'd think "It's only a 200 share order." But typically you have hundreds of you guys coming in at the same time. If you all got together in a room, you would say "Hey, wait a minute, maybe we should not display our order, like the institution does."  
  
Q: As a lifelong trader, do you think that many investors fancy themselves, or fancied themselves, as traders?  
  
Madoff: Yeah. It's a bull-market phenomenon. The market has been very hospitable to day traders. The last couple of months changed a lot of that. It's a sunny day, temperatures are balmy, everybody goes to the beach. It's cloudy, it rains, people go to the movies. The environment will change.  
  
Q: Will volume come back?  
  
Madoff: The day-trading volume will decrease in a bear market - if and when we get one. Clearly the great preponderance of day traders are a bull-market scenario. I think volume will come back depending on the market. Tell me what the market is going to do, I'll tell you what volume is going to do.

* * *

"State Of Music 2000," _Billboard_ , June 2, 2000

Audiences aren't exactly suffering a lack of tours to choose from. The biggest one, is the three surviving grunge heavyweights Nirvana, Soundgarden and Alice in Chains teaming up for a barnstorming tour to promote their respective new albums. But there is also plenty of other options. Journey, set to release their new album _Arrival_ and continue the comeback launched with _Trial by Fire_ , will be hitting the road with fellow contemporaries Styx and Foreigner, to mark the delayed release of the former's new album _Brave New World_ (held back to give frontman Dennis DeYoung time to recover his health and retool the album to incorporate a DeYoung-led single release entitled "Peace In Our Time") and the latter's return to the concert stage after more than three years on the sidelines (and lawsuits from promoters) as frontman Lou Gramm convalesced after having a brain tumor removed. The instrumentalists of the cartoon series _Jem_ are teaming up with The Monkees, which will feature the return of Michael Nesmith and augmented by a dynamic team of ringers are on tour together, with a planned repeat in 2001 to mark the release of a new album by the "Pre-Fab Four." Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young are launching a massive reunion tour. Marilyn Manson is moving to keep the momentum of his career flowing with the release of his new album _Holy Wood_ , said to combine the sonic fury of _Antichrist Superstar_ with the mature lyricism of _Mechanical Animals_. Alice Cooper is touring behind his own latest release, _Brutal Planet_ , as are Pantera for _Reinventing the Steel_. Motley Crue is attempting to undo the damage wrought by _Generation Swine_ with their current release _New Tattoo_ , though with replacement drummer Randy Castillo (formerly with Ozzy Osbourne) sidelined with a duodenal ulcer and himself replaced by session drummer Deen Castronovo. Courtney Love wants to prove her solo chops for _America's Sweetheart_ , Kiss are supposedly retiring, The Who are back in North America, this time with a scaled-down personnel list better matching their past, Stone Temple Pilots are joining forces with the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Godsmack on MTV's Return Of The Rock Tour, Jimmy Page is currently teaming up with The Black Crowes on a massive 55-date tour through North America, Europe and Japan to build on several successful dates last year and promote their successful Internet-released album _Live at the Greek_ , INXS and U2 are about to reemerge with new albums and new tours, and Bob Dylan is doing yet another leg of his "Never Ending Tour..."  
  
As for the industry as a whole, there are very clear signs of a state of flux...Thanks to the FCC failing to rubber stamp the planned consolidation of companies owning radio stations, radio programming for both classic and active rock stations remains very dynamic, allowing both new and established artists equal opportunity to promote their new works...MTV, however, is shifting away from rock for a decidedly bigger emphasis on pop and hip-hop, with the exception of their Return Of The Rock block, which even then is very selective (though at least the channel remains focused on music, news, and animated programs, with the exception of its hit series _The Real_ _World_ and _Jackass_ , and _The Tom Green Show_ before it). VH1 is moving to pick up the slack for rock artists at this point...With all the major labels having embraced selling digital downloads of their artists through their websites, clearly a shift away from CD sales is in the works. Napster, the website that triggered the initial concerns, is now being snapped up by major investors and shifting strategy to a subscription service to head off legal troubles...And even then, certain artists are better suited to benefit than others. After all, what are the chances that Motley Crue can secure a new bona fide hit in this day and age?

* * *

"Vivendi toasts Seagram," by Jame Keaten and Franklin Paul, CNN Money, June 20, 2000

Vivendi and Seagram, which built their fortunes peddling water and whiskey, respectively, emerged Tuesday as a global media colossus through a $34 billion marriage proposal, the latest in a string of mega-mergers that spotlight the value of linking media content and distribution companies.

Under a three-way deal that forms the world's No. 2 media company, French conglomerate Vivendi agreed to pay roughly $51.5 billion for Canadian entertainment and beverage company Seagram Co. (VO: Research, Estimates) and the 51 percent of Vivendi's pay-TV affiliate Canal Plus that it doesn't yet own.  
  
Paris-based Vivendi will shell out $34 billion in stock and assume $6.6 billion in debt for Montreal-based Seagram, based on share prices when the deal was announced early on Tuesday. Vivendi also said it would buy the Canal Plus stake for about $10.9 billion.

But by the end of the day, the Seagram portion of the deal shed over $4 billion in value to ring up at just over $29 billion, after investors frowned on the deal. Analysts said some were concerned about the company's ability to reach its goals of being "the first global communications group."

The new company, named Vivendi Universal, will have combined annual revenue of around $55 billion and earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization -- or cash flow, a key barometer of a media concern's fiscal health -- of about $7 billion, the companies said.

That would make it the world's No. 2 media and entertainment company after AOL Time Warner, the company being created by the merger of America Online and Time Warner, the parent of CNNfn.com.

It's all part of Vivendi Chairman Jean-Marie Messier's plan to deliver content, especially music from Seagram's world-leading Universal Music Group, across Vivendi's web of telecommunication systems, including Cegetel, one of France's biggest mobile-phone operators.

The new company, dubbed Vivendi Universal, will own businesses ranging from the Universal film studio and music labels to European pay-TV channels, electronic media, wireless telecommunications and theme parks.

Along the way, the agreement will end the Bronfman family's 84-year charge over Seagram and its well-known liquor brands such as Chivas Regal, Absolut Vodka and Captain Morgan Original Spiced Rum.

For Seagram chief executive Edgar Bronfman Jr., the loss of control of the company was in the best interest of the company's investors.

"Control is only valuable if it can create value," he said at a press briefing. "As we looked at the opportunities for Seagram and remaining independent, we felt that while we would continue to grow, it would not be the best way to optimize the assets that we have."

Bronfman said that while the family intends to be "long-term holders" of their new Vivendi stock, its feelings toward selling the company were bittersweet.

Philips Electronics NV, the second-largest shareholder in Seagram behind the Bronfman family, said Tuesday it supports the deal and will tender its 11 percent stake to Vivendi.

Stocks battered after the announcement  
  
Investors were not enthused about the deal. Vivendi (PEX) shares sank some 8 percent to 88.10, indicating possible concern that the company, born 150 years ago as a water-services utility, might be paying too much for the acquisition. The stock has dropped 24 percent since June 14, when it said it was engaged in talks.

Linda Bannister, an analyst for Bank of America Capital Management, said she thinks the price is right, when one adds up the value of Seagram's media properties.

"I believe it is a reasonable price," she said from the company's St. Louis office. "Seagram has a vast array of strong assets, especially in the music area. And any company that wanted to have access to that content was going to have to pay for it."

Canal Plus (PAN) sank more than 10 percent to 178.60 Tuesday; its stock was halted limit-down earlier in the day, after Vivendi's offer came in below the broadcaster's closing price Monday. Shares of Seagram, which have risen sharply in recent days amid reports of the pending deal, closed at 58-5/16 on Tuesday down 5-15/16.

Bronfman blamed the sliding price on traders taking a profit on the stock, a portent of the kind of price instability that may persist until the deal is completed later this year. Salomon Smith Barney analyst Jill Krutick downgraded her opinion of Seagram the stock for that very reason.

"While this transaction has all the markings of a home run, there are uncertainties that are likely to contribute to volatility in Seagram's shares until the deal closes," she said. "As such we suggest taking profits on strength."

Bronfman told a press conference that Seagram had anticipated a drop in the stock, and that his company would not walk away even if the price slump continues. Should the deal fall through, however, Seagram stands to earn an $800 million "break up" fee.

Vivendi banking on Vizzavi for its Internet link  
  
The company is banking on developing Vizzavi, a venture with Britain's Vodafone AirTouch to offer Internet access and online content to mobile-phone users, as one of the outlets for music on the Web.

Giving an example of the synergies that should emerge from the combination, Messier said he envisages putting Vizzavi promotions on Universal Music's compact discs. Universal's recording roster includes artists such as chart-topping Shania Twain and rock group U2.

"We believe this will be the best combination ... to deliver all the array of content and access that customers will want, will require and will pay for in the 21st century," said Bronfman, who will become Messier's second-in-command at the new company.

Bringing in Canal Plus, Europe's biggest pay-TV company, will expand Vizzavi's potential customer base, Messier said.

Vivendi decline to hit Seagram shareholders  
  
Vivendi said it began negotiations intending to pay $75 per Seagram share, but raised that to $77.35, for a total of $34 billion in stock. Under a flexible share-exchange formula, that's how much Seagram shareholders will get as long as the value of Vivendi's stock is in the range $96.69 to $124.30 a share, as it was a week ago, before confirmation of the talks.

But with Vivendi shares trading below that level Tuesday, the offer is now worth around $30 billion, or $68 per Seagram share, with the Canadian company's shareholders getting a maximum of 0.8 Vivendi share for each one of their own.

Vivendi also plans to swallow $6.6 billion in Seagram debt, which officials of the companies say will be repaid by the sale of liquor assets. Messier said he expects the liquor business to fetch about $8 billion, and insisted the new company will be debt-free and have positive cash flow by the end of 2000.

Analysts have speculated that companies such as Britain's Allied Domecq PLC might be interested in buying Seagram's liquor assets.

Vivendi also is offering two of its shares for every share of Canal Plus that it does not already own, a bid valued at about 11.5 billion ($10.9 billion) for the 51 percent stake. The company is virtually debt-free, sources said. Canal Plus operates a joint venture with CNN International in Spain.

Vivendi will absorb Canal Plus's film studio, Internet business and the pay-TV units outside France, but will divest its French pay-TV business, which will be taken public to comply with French laws governing the ownership of broadcasting assets.

The transaction will give Seagram five seats on the Vivendi Universal board, while Vivendi will hold 14 seats. Vivendi Chairman Jean-Marie Messier would not commit to giving Barry Diller, chairman of USA Networks Inc., one of the new company's two board seats set aside for non-Bronfman family members from the Seagram camp. Seagram owns a 45 percent stake in USA Networks.

Few antitrust concerns seen  
  
Bronfman said he does not expect the deal to run afoul of antitrust officials in Europe, Canada or the United States. Its would-be rival, AOL Time Warner, learned Monday that its own proposed merger faces an extended antitrust review by European Union officials. It would be normal for such a precedent to play a big part in the review process, legal experts pointed out.

"The thing the dealmakers tend to look at is: 'what did the guy ahead of me in line have to pay to get through?'" William Kovacic, a law professor and antitrust expert at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., said.

While Vivendi has said the deal will provide support for French cinema, cultural protection will be one of the issues on the agenda for antitrust officials at the European Commission, the EU's executive arm.

"The EC is more aggressive than either Canada or the United States, in the sense that they are more likely to be concerned with problems U.S. enforcers might find peripheral," said Eleanor Fox, a professor at New York University School of Law and an antitrust expert. "They will be looking to see what's best for consumers, and might also consider cultural concerns."

The European Commission has said it plans to review the deal.

* * *

"Fox Tooning Out, Closing Phoenix Arm," by Paul F. Duke, _Variety_ , June 27, 2000

In the wake of the disappointing box office results for _Titan A.E._ , 20th Century Fox said it will close its 6-year-old traditional animation facility in Phoenix, Arizona.

In February, Fox laid off about two-thirds of the 320 employees at the Phoenix unit, but Monday the studio said it is shuttering the unit entirely.

The move is a further sign that the animated world, while full of cuddly creatures, is also highly treacherous for pretenders to the Disney throne.

“It clearly is a tough marketplace,” said Fox Animation president Chris Meledandri.

Fox isn’t abandoning animation entirely — it has computer animation and projects that mix live action and animation in the works — but it is exiting the traditional cel animation biz it tried to get into starting with 1997’s _Anastasia_.

In its six years in business, the Phoenix unit produced only two pics, _Anastasia_ and _Titan_. _Anastasia_ won respectful reviews but earned a middling $58.4 million at the domestic box office, saved only by an overseas haul to make it a hit, bringing the total box office to $140 million. _Titan_ has pulled in a paltry $16.9 million since opening June 16, and the $80 million plus picture looks to be on its way to becoming a significant money loser for Fox. The weakness of _Titan_ — and more generally, the millions of dollars the studio surely lost in its overall investment in Phoenix — was probably a factor in the abrupt exit last week of studio chairman Bill Mechanic.

Doused by Mouse

Like other studios, such as DreamWorks, which have tried to encroach upon Disney’s lucrative hold on animated films aimed at kids and families, Fox found the competition intense and Disney fierce. For instance, in what was widely viewed as an aggressive move to protect its territory, the House of Mouse re-released _The Little Mermaid_ in theaters just a week before Fox bowed _Anastasia_.

Both _Titan_ and _Anastasia_ were directed by the animation team of Don Bluth and Gary Goldman, who ran the Phoenix facility. Meledandri said he couldn’t comment on what sort of end had been negotiated in the duo’s contracts. “At this time we don’t have any plans to make any more movies with them,” Meledandri said.

The surviving animation operations include the studio’s computer animation facility in Harrison, New York, Blue Sky Studios, which has been increasing staff recently as it prepares to start production on _Ice Age_ , a comedy-adventure about a woolly mammoth, a saber-toothed tiger and a sloth.

Still boning up

Fox is also in post-production on _Monkeybone_ , a comedy that mixes live-action and stop-motion animation. Pic, directed by Henry Selick, stars Brendan Fraser, Bridget Fonda and Whoopi Goldberg.

The animation division is also overseeing _The Dubbed Action Movie: Enter the Fist_ from writer-director Steve Oedekerk ( _Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls_ ). Spoof mixes digital effects into a 1970s Asian martial arts film. Division also has a Farrelly brothers animated pic, _Frisco Pigeon Mambo_ , in development; under consideration are five other feature projects to be made at Blue Sky.

* * *

"Springbok Productions Snaps Up Shuttered Fox Animation Studios," by Paul F. Duke, _V_ _ariety_ , June 28, 2000

Springbok Productions, the company founded last year by Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain, his wife, actress Charlize Theron, and producer and company CEO Jennifer Todd, has officially made a deal to purchase Fox Animation Studios, the shuttered Phoenix-based division of 20th Century Fox that closed its doors yesterday due to the financial failure of its new film, _Titan A.E._ The purchase, the financial details of which were not enclosed other than it was for an incredibly cheap price, gives the fledgling Springbok its own animation division with which to create film and television projects.

"Animation is part and parcel of the Springbok strategy," Todd said. "Fox Animation Studios had scores of talent, and we plan to keep them in business with us, and hopefully give them a new beginning, better than what came before." Todd stated that many of the animators at the Phoenix division that had been laid off or stuck to the company to its disastrous exit, will be rehired and/or kept on to help make projects for Springbok.

Furthermore, Todd has announced the animation division's first project, an adaptation of Don Bluth's iconic video game _Dragon's Lair_. Bluth and his longtime business partner Gary Goldman ran the Phoenix facility and made its two theatrical releases, 1997's _Anastasia_ , and _Titan_. "Don Bluth is an absolute legend in the field of animation, and we are truly honored to be working with him on a film based on his most iconic work, the one that made his reputation as an independent animator."

* * *

"WorldCom-Sprint merger near collapse as U.S. goes to law," by Anne Hyland, _The Guardian_ , June 28, 2000

The £76 billion merger of telephone groups WorldCom and Sprint was on the verge of collapse after global regulators yesterday said they would block the deal.

The US Department of Justice said it would file a lawsuit to block the merger of long distance operator Sprint with its bigger rival. US Attorney General Janet Reno said: "This merger threatens to undermine the competitive gains achieved since the [Justice] department challenged AT&T's monopoly of the telecommunications industry 25 years ago."

European competition commissioner Mario Monti said this week that neither company had provided solutions to competition concerns and he would recommend against approving the deal in its present form. The European Commission was expected to make a ruling on the merger today. However, last night both companies withdrew their merger proposals from the EC review.

WorldCom and Sprint rank second and third respectively in the American long-distance telephone market, behind AT&T. The three companies control about 80% of the market and regulators are concerned that the union of Sprint and WorldCom could lead to dominance in long-distance and internet markets, and to higher pricing for services.

The US Justice Department's lawsuit says: "For millions of residential and business customers throughout the nation, the merger will lead to higher prices, lower service quality and less innovation."

WorldCom runs the biggest internet backbone in the US, carrying about 37% of data traffic. Sprint operates the second-biggest network, accounting for about 16%. WorldCom yesterday said it would "promptly review its options with Sprint". Sprint said: "We are disappointed that we have been unable to convince the justice department that the merger is in the best interest of the American public and would advance competition."

Analysts predicted yesterday that WorldCom would abandon the deal unless it could strike an agreement to purchase only a portion of Sprint's operations, such as its mobile unit. Both companies have already offered to divest of Sprint's Internet operations. However, the Justice Department is understood to have said that was not enough and any proposal must also include Sprint's long-distance and local telephone operations.

Yet the European Competition Commission has reservations about such a break-up of Sprint, citing the failings two years ago of the deal between WorldCom and MCI. The merger of WorldCom and MCI was approved on the condition that MCI's Internet business was sold. Cable & Wireless bought the business and later sued WorldCom, claiming the company poached customers and withheld support staff.

If a scenario occurred where Sprint's long-distance and internet businesses were put up for sale, Deutsche Telekom has been tipped as a likely buyer. The German telecommunications group has been looking for a way to enter the US long-distance market to achieve its desire for a global network.

However, the collapse of a merger with Sprint would mean a rethink of WorldCom's strategy. The company already tasted failure earlier this year when it was outbid in the UK market to win a third-generation mobile phone license.

* * *

“Movie ‘Vanity Deals’ Fade to Black-Megastars Are Told: ‘Put Out or Get Out,’” by Peter Fearon, _T_ _he New York Post_ , July 6, 2000 **  
  
**Hollywood studios are showing some of Tinseltown’s top stars the door, virtually bringing to an end one of the favorite perks of stardom: “vanity deals” to produce movies that never seem to get made.  
  
Among the latest to have their production-company phones disconnected are Nicolas Cage, Madonna, Denzel Washington, Demi Moore, Antonio Banderas and Melanie Griffith.  
  
Under the vanity-deal system, favored stars form a production company and ally themselves to a studio. The stars get fully equipped offices and access to the studio’s top executives, a staff of a dozen producers, readers and gofers and a multimillion-dollar budget for buying whatever scripts, treatments and books the star is interested in. In return, the studios are supposed to get the inside track with the stars when casting their movies and first refusal of any movie the stars’ production companies set up.  
  
The system was designed to keep stars happy, tied to their studio partners and churning out profitable movies for them. For the studios, vanity deals add up to expenditures of anywhere from $3 million to $5 million per year per star, and when it works, it’s a sound investment. “It’s like panning for gold,” said Hollywood agent Grant Jackson. “If you are looking in the right place, the more dirt you pan, the more gold you are likely to find.” But when it doesn’t work – and, more often than not it doesn’t – it’s a drain on resources.  
  
DAILY VARIETY, the trade newspaper of the entertainment business, has been keeping track of studio production deals since the mid-’90s. It concluded recently that the “vanity deal” is virtually dead and producers have been told: “put out or get out.” “If you want to keep your gig, your energy level better be frenetic and your output significant or you’ll be sent packing,” Charles Lyons of _Variety_ advised.  
  
Only a select group of stars still have personal production deals with major studios. Among them are Michael Douglas, Tom Hanks, Eddie Murphy and Will Smith at Universal; Sean Connery, Helen Hunt and Jennifer Love Hewitt with Sony; Drew Barrymore at Fox; Tom Cruise, Jodie Foster and Mel Gibson at Paramount; George Clooney, Kevin Costner and Clint Eastwood at Warner; Pierce Brosnan and Robert De Niro at MGM; and Bruce Willis, Robin Williams and Glenn Close at Disney.  
  
Producer Barry Green, a former Universal executive, says vanity deals used to make sense, but more and more studios are finding them a burden. “The typical attitude used to be that there is prestige in this or that star being tied to your studio, that one of them is going to come up with a money maker and it will pay for all the others that don’t get made,” he said. “Sure, a lot of money is wasted, but then wasting a lot of money is one of the things that Hollywood does best.”  
  
As the cost of making movies soared, studios looked for leaner and meaner deals. But in the last couple of years the studios have gotten themselves into difficulties. The costs of making movies have jumped in the last 10 years and so have the costs of marketing them. “The real cost of a movie is about $75 million now,” Green said. “That means they stand less chance of making profit. So these deals with middle rank stars began to give way. Every little million counts.”  
  
Among the recent big-name casualties are Griffith and Banderas. Griffith’s _Crazy in Alabama_ was intended to be the vehicle for her to get back into Oscar contention. But the $10 million movie, developed by Griffith and Banderas’ company Green Moon, took just $600,000 at the box office –a new definition for the word flop. Although Griffith personally paid for the rights to the novel on which the movie was based, Warner played host to the production company. After the flop, someone at the studio cried “Enough!”  
  
Other casualties: Universal unloaded Sylvester Stallone’s Cop Land Ventures, Moore’s Moving Pictures and Penny Marshall’s Parkway Productions while Warner offed Madonna’s Madguy Films, Sony ditched Michelle Pfeiffer’s Via Rosa, and Disney ended a long association with Cage’s Saturn Films.  
  
As long ago as 1998, Joe Roth, then the studio chief at Disney, told _Variety_ that the days of Hollywood’s vanity deals were numbered. “The math doesn’t add up,” he said then. “We’re just coming to the realization that it’s a bad business practice. How many of these deals add value to our movie program?” Roth set about cutting the number of production deals at Disney from 70 to about 30. Diane Keaton, Sean Connery and Dolly Parton were among stars told to hand in their mouse ears then. Within a year, the other big studios were doing the same thing and about 20 percent of all the production deals in Hollywood were torn up. “A lot of [Porsche] Boxsters got send back to the dealers,” said Green.  
  
Now Roth has left Disney to set up shop himself and, ironically, he has taken the most powerful woman in Hollywood, Julia Roberts with him. Her production company, Shoelace Productions, has a deal with Roth’s Revolution Studios. But he is making unprecedented demands of Roberts: a movie production deal that must produce movies. “We will support her,” he said recently, “but, in return, she has to give us three movies over the next five years,” Roth said. “That way, we are pretty certain to get our rent back. And that might just be a first in Hollywood.”  
  
Into this atmosphere, Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain and his wife, Charlize Theron, recently founded their own production company, Springbok Productions, which is currently producing an adaptation of the manga/anime series _Ghost in the Shell_ , due to be released in April by Sony. However, as co-founder Jennifer Todd has taken pains to state, Springbok is "definitely not a vanity deal. We're not tied to one studio, we're not taking space on a major's studio lot, and we are not relying on a studio to pay our overheads. We are going to take our own initiative, bring the projects to fruition ourselves. We can get that done with our own pool of capital, from Planet Hollywood, Miami Subs Pizza & Grill, the group of investors we brought for startup funds, Nirvana's earnings, and Charlize's royalties from her own films, not to mention the money invested in _What Lies Beneath_ and _Cast Away_. Basically, we're more like what Mel Gibson has done with Icon Productions, than people like Alicia Silverstone." Springbok also took over the ownership and construction of a 1087-acre studio lot in Playa Vista, California, that was originally earmarked for DreamWorks SKG, to be their operating space. It will officially open for business in the spring, along with a small town around it, as Springbok officially gets its first project out to the public and after paying $750 million for the project.  
  
Time, as always, will be the ultimate arbiter of fate for Cobain and Theron's venture, to see whether it is everything Todd claims, or yet another shingle that will fall apart.

* * *

"WorldCom, Sprint Terminate Merger Agreement," PRNewswire, July 13, 2000 **  
  
**Clinton, MS- WorldCom today announced the termination of its merger agreement with Sprint, following action by the boards of directors of both companies. The companies rejected conditions demanded by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) that would have eliminated the customer benefits and financial synergies that supported the proposed merger.  
  
The following statement should be attributed to Bernard J. Ebbers, president and CEO of WorldCom, Inc:  
  
"We very much regret that our merger with Sprint was not allowed to proceed. The benefits of this merger were clear and compelling. Opposition to this merger just adds to the list of Kennard-Klein policies that ultimately will reduce innovation and choice, and raise the cost of communications services, for residential customers, particularly those in rural America. Sprint is a fine company. We wish them well. Moving forward, WorldCom remains the best-positioned global carrier with a clear focus on the highest-growth sectors of the domestic and global telecommunications marketplace. WorldCom has continued to expand on its core strengths since the merger was proposed last year. We have consistently produced significant quarter-to-quarter revenue growth in the data, Internet and international communications services - businesses that represent $18 billion of our annual revenue, growing 32 percent annually. Without a doubt, these high-growth areas represent the future of the industry and our company."

* * *

"Will the Dancing Hitlers _Please_ Wait in the Hall? _Producers_ Now Casting", by David Lefkowitz, _Playbill_ , August 18, 2000 **  
  
**For weeks, _The Producers_ , a stage adaptation of Mel Brooks' classic comedy film, seemed to be alive but dormant, with little known about it except that Susan Stroman had been tapped to direct and choreograph, Nathan Lane was all-but-inked to star, and _Annie_ librettist Thomas Meehan was co-writing the book.  
  
However, further news is finally starting to trickle in, now that auditions are being held for chorus and other roles. According to Show Business' newspaper's Casting section (Aug. 16), Equity auditions for female singers were being held Aug. 17 at Chelsea Studios, with Johnson-Liff Associates serving as the casting directors. The paper also reports that the producers of _The Producers_ will be Richard Frankel Productions, Scorpio Entertainment, Jujamcyn Theatres and SFX Theatrical Group. (A Jujamcyn source confirmed Jujamcyn's involvement and noted that the Frankel office would serve as general managers.) The Show Business casting announcement also lists Glen Kelly as musical supervisor.  
  
As previously reported, according to a BrooksFilms spokesperson, author Brooks is out of the country until the end of August, so details on when, where and who will be in the show have been slow in coming. Though Matthew Broderick as Lane's co-star seems like an open secret in the industry (an Aug. 17 _Variety_ story about director Stroman lists it as fact), Broderick's agent at CAA told _Playbill On-Line_ (Aug. 18) that the actor has been offered the role but no deal has yet been made.  
  
What is known is that Brooks is adapting his screenplay with co-librettist Meehan, who wrote the book for the mega-hit _Annie_. Brooks is also penning the words and music to a couple of new tunes for the show, though the song titles are not yet available for publication. The film version, though about the birth of a rotten Broadway musical, actually had only three songs in it: the mock-60's-rock "Love Power," the cheery "Prisoners of Love" and the towering anthem, "Springtime for Hitler."  
  
Though no cast members are actually confirmed at this point, in a March 2 appearance on "The Late Show With David Letterman," Brooks, a guest on the show, pulled a contract for the musical out of his pants and told Lane, who was Letterman’s guest host, to sign it. Brooks told the crowd he wanted Lane to star in the planned stage musical, presumably in the Max Bialystock role originated by Zero Mostel. Lane, currently starring in the Roundabout's _The Man Who Came to Dinner_ , agreed. As for the character of Leo Bloom, the nebbishy accountant rooked by Max into co-producing a flop Broadway musical for financial gain, early reports had Brooks interested in Martin Short for the role played on film by Gene Wilder. More recently, Broderick ( _How to Succeed in Business..._ ) has been mentioned, with Lane telling the _New York Observer_ (article dated July 24), "Matthew Broderick will hopefully play Leo Bloom." Mario Cantone, currently starring in _The Crumple Zone_ Off-Broadway, has also been mentioned for a role.  
  
There is no confirmation for dates or a theatre for _The Producers_ (sources have been pointing to the St. James, current home of _Swing!_ ). However, Brooks' spokesperson did say the earliest Broadway might see the musical would be January 2001.  
  
"We're actually going to do a reading of [Mel's] musical," director Stroman told _Playbill_ (March 28). "He's written the musical and lyrics and the book. Every single page is funny." Evan Pappas was then slated to play Leo Bloom, in an upcoming workshop of the new musical, a spokesman for the reading told _Playbill On-Line_. Pappas was most recently seen in the Broadway musical, _Parade_.

* * *

"Brooks and Meehan’s _Producers_ to Open April 19 at Bway’s St. James", by David Lefkowitz, _Playbill_ , September 13, 2000 **  
  
**Although _Swing!_ has yet to announce a closing date (though rumors have it lasting until mid-January 2001), a production spokesperson at the Barlow-Hartman office has confirmed that _The Producers_ will open April 19 at the St. James Theatre. Directed and choreographed by Susan Stroman, the musical adaptation of Mel Brooks' classic film comedy is to start rehearsals Dec. 4 and begin previews in late March 2001. As reported by Theatrical Index, the show will have its pre-Broadway tryout at Chicago's Cadillac Palace, Feb. 1-25, 2001.  
  
Nathan Lane will play Max Bialystock, an overbearing theatrical producer who was once the toast of Broadway but has now fallen on hard times. Matthew Broderick will be Leo Bloom, a shy accountant who, under Max's tutelage, finally blossoms -- albeit into a criminal. Brooks and Thomas Meehan ( _Annie_ ) are collaborating on the tuner. Several other names have been mentioned as likely for the cast. Among them are: Cady Huffman, best known for playing Ziegfeld's Favorite in _The Will Rogers Follies_ , as the leads' sexpot secretary, Ulla; Gary Beach ( _Beauty and the Beast's_ candelabra) as effete director Roger DeBris; and Ron Orbach ( _Laughter on the 23rd Floor_ ) as unregenerate Nazi playwright, Franz Liebkin. Word on the street has it that Tony winner Roger Bart ( _Y_ _ou're A Good Man, Charlie Brown_ ) is close to signing for Carmen Ghia, Roger's even more-effeminate manservant, but that could not be confirmed at press time. (Bart went into Off-Broadway's _Fully Committed_ Sept. 12.)  
  
Casting for ensemble roles is still being finalized. Apparently, the role of the florid LSD, the hippie rock singer drafted into playing Adolf Hitler has been eliminated, though elements of LSD show up in a new and different character. No word yet on whether LSD's environmental anthem, "Love Power," is still in the show. The musical is being produced by Rocco Landesman, Frankel-Viertel-Baruch-Routh Group, Michael Cohl, Rick Steiner and Robert F.X. Sillerman. Equity auditions were held in mid-August, though the Lane casting was in the works long before that. (In a March 2 appearance on "The Late Show With David Letterman," Brooks, a guest on the show, pulled a contract for the musical out of his pants and told Lane, who was Letterman’s guest host, to sign it. Brooks told the crowd he wanted Lane to star in the planned stage musical, presumably in the Max Bialystock role originated by Zero Mostel. Lane, currently starring in the Roundabout's _The Man Who Came to Dinner_ , agreed.) Broderick's name had been rumored for months, although early reports had Martin Short as Brooks' first choice for the nebbishy Bloom, with Evan Pappas also considered during the early reading stages.  
  
Theatregoers can be forgiven for keeping an extra-close eye on every aspect of _The Producers_. Not only is Brooks' 1968 film on many lists as the funniest film ever made, the plot-line is about Broadway itself. Brooks' Oscar-winning screenplay tells of a larger-than-life but down-on-his-luck Broadway producer who enlists a meek tax accountant, Leo Bloom, to help him get back on top. The scheme is not to mount a hit play, but to raise a lot of money, produce a great stinking flop, and then disappear before paying back the investors. What better choice for a disaster than "Springtime For Hitler," a dramatic love-letter to Der Furher penned by a German lunatic living in a Brooklyn tenement? After securing the property, Max and Leo add a flamboyant director and a stoned hippie leading man, all but ensuring that "Springtime For Hitler" will be excruciatingly bad. Only it turns out, it's so bad, it's funny...  
  
Back in late March, director-choreographer Stroman ( _Contact, The Music Man_ ) told Playbill On-Line, "We're actually going to do a reading of [Mel's] musical," "He's written the musical and lyrics and the book. Every single page is funny."

* * *

"AT&T To Create Family Of Four New Companies; Company To Offer To Exchange AT&T Common Stock For AT&T Wireless Stock", PRNewswire, October 25, 2000 **  
  
**NEW YORK - AT &T today announced plans to create a family of four new companies, each operating under the "AT&T" brand, committed to uniform standards of quality and continuing to bundle each other’s services through inter-company agreements.  
  
Under the company’s restructuring plan, which it expects to complete in 2002, each of its major units will become a publicly-held company, trading as a common stock or a tracking stock. AT&T shareowners ultimately would own stock in four businesses, each a leader in its industry.  
  
AT&T Wireless is one of the fastest-growing wireless companies in the United States. AT&T Broadband is the largest cable TV and broadband services company. AT&T Business is the leading enterprise communications and networking company. And AT&T Consumer is the premiere consumer communications and marketing company.  
  
Upon completion of the company’s plan, AT&T Wireless and AT&T Broadband will be represented by independent, asset-based common stocks. AT&T Consumer will be represented by a tracking stock of AT&T. AT&T’s principal unit will be AT&T Business. Each of the four companies will be individually accountable to customers, investors, employees and other constituencies who will be able to evaluate their performance against comparable companies.  
  
"This is a pivotal event in the transformation of AT&T we began three years ago," said AT&T Chairman and CEO C. Michael Armstrong. "It creates a family of four national service providers that will be even better equipped to bring American families and businesses a new generation of broadband communications and information services.  
  
"We’re combining the power of a common vision with the focus and flexibility of separate companies," said Armstrong. "Each of these new companies will move faster in meeting customer needs, but they’ll serve them under one of the world’s most recognized and respected brands and they’ll still be able to offer bundled services through inter-company agreements. Their employees will have better career opportunities and be even more highly motivated because they’ll be working for industry-leading companies that don’t have to compete internally for capital or attention. Shareowners should get the full value of their investment because investors will be better able to evaluate the financial performance of each AT&T company and compare it to its competitors."  
  
Armstrong stressed that the new companies will continue to collaborate. AT&T Business, for example, will continue to bundle the Wireless company’s services into its offers for business customers. AT&T Business will continue to use AT&T Broadband’s cable systems in serving some customers. The Wireless, Broadband and Consumer companies will purchase network services from AT&T Business under competitive, long-term commercial contracts.  
  
AT&T’s Board of Directors unanimously approved the plan in a series of meetings through the first half of the week. Next, the Board will establish a capital structure and dividend policy appropriate to each of the new companies. Among the factors the Board will consider are each company’s financial performance, the dividend policies and capital structures of comparable companies, and each company’s on-going capital needs. AT&T Consumer, for example, is expected to allocate a greater portion of its earnings to dividends, while the other businesses can create greater shareowner value by reinvesting more of their profits.  
  
The Board plans to complete its review of dividend policies before the end of the year. However, the company expects that the four new companies’ combined dividend will be substantially less than AT&T’s current dividend. Anticipating that framework, the Board intends to adopt a corresponding dividend policy for AT&T beginning in the fourth quarter of 2000.  
  
Restructuring Plan  
  
In the first phase of its restructuring plan, the company intends to offer AT&T shareowners the opportunity to exchange their AT&T Common Stock for AT&T Wireless tracking stock at approximate market prices. About fifteen percent of the economic interest in AWE is already in public hands. The company said it plans to offer AT&T shareowners the opportunity to exchange at least $10 billion of its economic interest in AWE for their AT&T shares, subject to market and other conditions.  
  
AT&T will file its exchange proposal with the Securities and Exchange Commission in the fourth quarter of 2000 and expects to implement the plan as soon as possible afterwards. Following the exchange offer and any additional sale, adjustment or other disposition, the company plans to distribute its remaining interest in AT&T Wireless to AT&T shareowners later in 2001. Both the distribution and the exchange offer are expected to be tax-free to U.S. shareowners.  
  
The company also said that it would seek any necessary tax, regulatory and other approvals to convert the AWE tracking stock into an asset-based AT&T Wireless common stock and to distribute it to shareowners. As a separate company, AT&T Wireless will be better able to raise capital on its own, attract and retain employees and use its stock as a currency in acquiring, partnering or engaging in other transactions with other companies. AT&T expects AT&T Wireless to be an independent, publicly-held company in the summer of 2001.  
  
Further, AT&T plans to create a new consumer communications and marketing company around its existing residential long distance and WorldNet Internet access businesses. AT&T said it would create a new class of stock to track the Consumer company’s performance. It currently plans to distribute 100 percent of the tracking stock to AT&T shareowners in the third quarter of 2001.  
  
As a separate company, AT&T Consumer plans to explore new growth opportunities. For example, it could use a portion of its cash flow to invest in technologies, such as Digital Subscriber Loops (DSL), to provide "any distance" broadband communications and Internet services.  
  
AT&T also announced that, depending on market conditions, it plans to conduct an initial public offering (IPO) for stock that will track the performance of its Broadband unit during the summer of 2001. AT&T Broadband is the country’s leading provider of broadband services, including multi-channel video, pay-TV, high-speed Internet access, and communications. It will assume AT&T’s ownership interest in Excite@Home in connection with its public offering. Excite@Home is the country’s leading provider of high-speed Internet access service.  
  
The company plans to recapitalize the Broadband tracking stock to an asset-based common stock within 12 months of the IPO. It will then simultaneously separate the rest of the company from its Broadband unit, creating two independent, publicly-traded companies.  
  
When all four companies have been established, AT&T’s principal unit will be AT&T Business, which provides enterprise communications and networking. The company will trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the familiar "T" symbol. It will also be the legal owner of the AT&T brand, which it will license to the other companies. It will be the parent company of the AT&T Consumer business and will be the issuer of the AT&T Consumer tracking stock. AT&T will include the AT&T Network and AT&T Labs, which will serve other AT&T-branded companies as well as other companies under commercial contracts. AT&T will also continue to hold a 50 percent interest in Concert, its international communications services joint venture with BT.  
  
All four companies will generally have exclusive licenses to use the "AT&T" brand within their respective markets and, under the terms of the license, they will commit to pre-determined service quality standards and conform to common customer relationship policies on such issues as privacy.  
  
Four AT&T Companies  
  
Armstrong said the company’s plan will not only give greater visibility to the market value of each of AT&T’s individual businesses but will free them to be more responsive to their specific markets and move more quickly to seize growth opportunities. Establishing AT&T Wireless as an asset-based stock company, for example, will enable it to raise more capital than it could as part of AT&T and give it greater strategic flexibility.  
  
"We transformed a patchwork of local analog cellular systems into a nationwide digital service that redefined the wireless industry," Armstrong said. "Since established as a tracking stock, AT&T Wireless has exceeded every performance target, with record operating results in the last two quarters. They had revenue of $9.6 billion over the last 12 months. Now they’ll be able to move as quickly as they need to in an industry that is exploding with opportunity."  
  
The consumer services company, to be known as AT&T Consumer, posted over $19 billion in revenue over the last 12 months and had earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) of more than $8 billion. It is the leading provider of pre-paid calling cards with distribution through more than 60,000 retail outlets. AT&T Consumer entered the local service market in Texas and New York and already has 950,000 "any distance" customers. Its WorldNet service is one of the leading providers of residential dial-up Internet access with over 1.3 million subscribers.  
  
As a tracking stock, AT&T Consumer will be able to use its cash flow in growing these businesses and investing in new initiatives. The new company will have an exclusive license to use the "AT&T" brand for standalone residential long distance and dial-up Internet access service.  
  
"Our consumer unit has about 60 million long distance customers," said Armstrong. "As a separate company, they will be able to build on those relationships in ways that would have been difficult or redundant within the current AT&T structure. They will set their own priorities and be able to use more of the capital they generate to fund them."  
  
Armstrong said that the restructuring plan will allow AT&T management to give increased operational focus to its Business and Broadband units. AT&T Business’ data and IP revenue grew more than 20 percent in the third quarter, but voice long distance revenue continued to decline industry-wide at a faster rate than previously estimated. Overall, AT&T Business generated more than $28 billion in revenue over the last 12 months. AT&T Broadband produced revenue of $9.3 billion in the same period. It continues to meet aggressive targets for installing new cable services, with a revenue increase of nearly 11 percent in the third quarter, and is expected to hit its full stride in 2001.  
  
"Over the past year and a half," Armstrong said, "we transformed a collection of scattered cable TV systems into a tightly clustered, technologically advanced broadband services platform, delivering AT&T-branded video, voice and data services to millions of American families. Similarly, three years ago, our business long distance division sold primarily voice services over a circuit-switched network. Today, nearly a third of their revenue is in data and IP services. And they’ve signed more than $12 billion in outsourcing and network management contracts with some of the most sophisticated companies in the world."  
  
The company hopes to complete all transactions in 2002, following any requisite shareowner votes in 2001 and necessary regulatory reviews and tax rulings.  
  
Armstrong, 62, continues as AT&T’s Chairman and CEO. He said that the company's Board of Directors would name CEO’s for the new AT&T Consumer, AT&T Broadband and AT&T Business companies at the appropriate time. Robert M. Aquilina, 45, and Howard E. McNally, 47, are currently co-presidents of AT&T’s Consumer Services unit. Daniel E. Somers, 51, is president of its Broadband unit; and Richard R. Roscitt, 48, president of its Business Services unit.  
  
John D. Zeglis, 53, will remain Chairman and CEO of AT&T Wireless; Mohan Gyani, 48, will remain as President and Chief Operating Officer.  
  
AT&T, which currently has about 160,000 employees, said that it does not expect significant downsizing to result from its plans although it reiterated that each company will continue to size its operations to be as competitive as possible. Any employees whose jobs are eliminated will have access to job opportunities across all of the new AT&T companies, as well as a full range of assistance including job counseling.  
  
AT&T recognizes the importance of its relationship with debt investors. The proceeds from the repayment of inter-company obligations due to AT&T by AT&T Wireless, as well as funds from the AT&T Broadband tracking stock initial public offering, will be used to retire short-term debt. The company will reapportion its remaining debt, in a manner to be determined, between AT&T Business (including the AT&T Consumer tracking stock) and AT&T Broadband. The company currently expects that existing TCI and MediaOne debt will remain with AT&T Broadband; AT&T’s term debt, with AT&T Business. Meanwhile, AT&T intends to increase its credit facility by approximately $15 billion. AT&T will work with the credit rating agencies to obtain strong ratings for the new companies.  
  
Financial details of transactions will be released, in accordance with securities regulations, as they become available. All of these transactions are expected to be tax-free to U.S. shareowners.  
  
Certain aspects of the transactions will require regulatory and other approvals and other aspects will be subject to market conditions or other financial considerations. While AT&T is confident of its ability to resolve any issues that arise, there can be no guarantee that the restructuring plan will be implemented or that changes in the plan will not be made.  
  
The investment banking firms of Credit Suisse First Boston and Goldman, Sachs & Co., as well as the law firm of Wachtell Lipton Rosen & Katz, are serving as advisors to AT&T. Salomon Smith Barney is a co-advisor to AT&T in connection with AT&T Consumer. Merrill Lynch & Company is advising AT&T in connection with certain AT&T Wireless matters.

* * *

"Vote Counts Too Close To Call-Recounts To Begin," _USA Today_ , November 8, 2000

In an astonishing result, last night's election officially ended with no clear winner in several states. The hotly contested race between Vice President Al Gore, the Republican candidate, Texas Governor George W. Bush, and third-party candidate Ralph Nader, suddenly ended with issues and inconclusive results in Hawaii, Wisconsin, Iowa, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Ohio and Florida. As a result, state-wide recounts in all seven states are to begin at once.

This election had been a very contentious one, as Nader had set his sights firmly on Vice President Gore, calling his policies "Republican-lite", especially with regards to the environment, and seemed to have much less to say about Governor Bush, a fact that did not escape the Vice President during the three debates last month. Vice President Gore also was buffeted by attacks of being considered favored by the Democratic National Committee with allegations that it had kneecapped the primary campaign of Senator Bill Bradley, such as with supposedly giving debate questions in advance to him by the moderator, CNN's Bernard Shaw. Vice President Gore's campaign also came under scrutiny when a package of debate prep materials of Governor Bush, including a videotaped mock debate session, was mailed to them. The Vice President's campaign insists that it immediately turned the package over to the FBI, but Mr. Nader insisted otherwise. Meanwhile, Governor Bush went out to push his vision of what he calls "compassionate conservatism", and projecting a very folksy, down-to-earth image with the press and the voters in comparison to Vice President Gore's somewhat academic approach.

Initial media reports handed the election to Governor Bush, and Vice President Gore even called his opponent to concede. However, before the governor could give his victory speech, reports came in that the counts in the seven states were too close to call, so Vice President Gore called back to retract his concession.

At this point, it is unclear what the end result of the vote counts will be, whether there will be a clear winner, or of no candidate receiving an Electoral College victory and the election having to be decided by the House of Representatives, as has happened during the elections of 1800, 1824 and 1876.

* * *

"Savile Convicted," BBC website, November 10, 2000

While America is consumed with worries about the winner of the current Presidential election as several states have called the race too close to call, especially Florida and Ohio, and whether the results will lead in either Al Gore or George W. Bush being elected, Britain is officially marking a grim event in its history. Today, former radio and television host Jimmy Savile was convicted on all counts of historical sexual assault. Savile appeared unrepentant and unbowed, pledging that he would write a tell-all book in prison that would vindicate him.

With this, the "pedo ring" scandal comes to an end. Gary Glitter has been behind bars for two years. Rolf Harris was convicted and sentenced to 35 years on July 15, 1999; and Max Clifford, reading the tea leaves, changed his plea to guilty on the same day. However, many sense that a sea change has been started, as America seems to be slowly waking up to a similar threat with the revelations about film mogul Harvey Weinstein, and clear indications that the New York and Los Angeles District Attorney's Offices are both building cases against him.

"This closes a grim chapter in British history," Dame Janet Smith said to the public. "And it is opening a bigger one across the world, as sexual criminals are beginning to be brought to the light like never before."

* * *

"Gore Concedes," _USA Today_ , December 13, 2000

In the aftermath of the Supreme Court decision regarding the status of the recount in Florida, Vice President Al Gore officially conceded the election last night.

Over the past month, as seven states grappled with voting recounts to determine whether the Vice President or his Republican opponent, Texas Governor George W. Bush, had carried the states, the results only further added to an electoral tie. Florida emerged as the last obstacle. If Vice President Gore were determined the winner of the state, he would win the election. If Governor Bush were declared the winner, the election results would leave neither man with an Electoral College victory, and the election would be decided by the House of Representatives, where a Republican majority would clearly decide Governor Bush as the winner.

The legal wrangling in Florida became quite intense by both parties, especially in certain Democratic-leaning counties. The Gore campaign and the Democratic Party particularly cited Palm Beach County as a troubled spot, because of the design of its so-called "butterfly ballot," in which voters were to punch holes signifying who they chose. But the design had Libertarian Party candidate Pat Buchanan as being in between Vice President Gore and Governor Bush, and many also cited the arrows pointing to the specified candidate as being flawed in execution, in that voters expecting to vote for Gore would be choose Buchanan instead, while Governor Bush was at the top, so Bush voters would have no such difficulty. Furthermore, a whistleblower revealed communication between Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris and the state's governor, Jeb Bush, the Republican candidate's brother, regarding "updating" the voter rolls in the state, which amounted to massive purge of voters, mainly those registered as Democrats. There were also squabbles over whether absentee ballots in Seminole County had been tampered with by having the vote and information "corrected", and whether those votes should be counted or not.

The Bush campaign attempted to stop the recount at various times, but the Florida Supreme Court specified that the recount should continue. This was appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which yesterday ruled in a 5-4 decision to stop the recount, citing the equal protection clause, and saying that the recount would likely not be finished by the "safe harbor" date of December 18, when the Electoral College is scheduled to meet. It also controversially stated that the decision could not be considered precedent, and that it applies only to the current circumstances.

Seeing the writing on the wall, Vice President Gore conceded the election, and stressed the need for unity at this time. He also started with a joke, saying "I called Governor Bush, and I promised I wouldn't call him back this time!" Governor Bush's campaign accepted this and gave a victory speech, even though the election still has to go to the House, which won't happen until January 6. Of course, this is being considered by many as a formality, because of the expectations that Governor Bush will win that decision. "Well, thank god it's over," filmmaker Michael Moore said. "Even though it's a Republican victory, at least the whole mess is over and done with."


	2. 2001-2003

" _Producer_ -ing On Broadway: Lane, Broderick and Brooks Offer Sneak Peak", by Christine Ehrenan and David Lefkowitz, _Playbill_ , January 11, 2001 **  
  
**“I can't tell you how thrilled I am to be a part of this. This is my dream," filmmaker, actor and now composer-lyricist Mel Brooks announced to the press gathered at the New 42nd Street Studios Jan. 11, "My dream - to be with a Broadway show, out of town, with all these girls." Well, _The Producers_ is on its way to an out-of-town tryout in Chicago (where, Brooks hoped, one of the beautiful ladies of the chorus would take pity on him), but first, the highly-anticipated Mel Brooks musical gave a brief preview for the press.  
  
Tony Award winners Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick are the stars of the show and both had a moment to shine in the Brooks songbook. Lane, as Max Bialystock, an overbearing theatrical producer who was once the toast of Broadway but has now fallen on hard times, went first with the second number in the show, "King of Broadway." In it, Bialystock finds himself standing outside the Shubert Theatre, contemplating the opening - and closing - night of his latest show, _Funny Boy_ , a musical version of _Hamlet_. A blind violinist makes him remember the good old days, when he was "young and gay, but straight" and had six shows on Broadway - "and one was a hit!" - dissolving the Eastern European lament into a parody of traditional Jewish dance.  
  
Still, Bialystock has it better than Leo Bloom, the shy accountant played by Broderick. Although he first discovers how a producer can make a bundle of cash with a flop, he initially refuses Bialystock's offer to become partners. Returning to his dreary workplace, ruled with an iron fist by a menacing CPA played by Ray Wills and populated by "Unhappy" accountants, whose troubles come out in an "Old Man River"-esque dirge, he starts to dream of his life as a Broadway impresario in "I Wanna Be a Producer." As Bloom drifts deep into his fantasy, chorus girls emerge from filing cabinets, pink champagne runs out of the water cooler and suddenly he's tap-dancing with top hat and cane.  
  
The Act One Finale is the moment when the specially selected flop, _Springtime for Hitler_ , starts to come together. Bialystock and Bloom have their playwright - unregenerate Nazi and pigeon aficionado, Franz Liebkind (Ron Orbach); their director - the effete Roger DeBris (Gary Beach) and his even-more-effeminate manservant, Carmen Ghia (Roger Bart); and their secretary/receptionist with Broadway dreams of her own, the alluring Ulla (Cady Huffman). Finally, the conmen producers have managed to fleece all of "Old Ladyland" and they have their money. Nothing can stop them - or so they think. Currently in the score, aside from the movie's well-known musical parody tunes "Springtime for Hitler" and "Prisoner of Love," are "We Can Do It," Liebkind's lullaby to the fatherland titled "In Old Bavaria," which is followed by a mockery of Bavarian dance, "The Guten Tag Hop Clop," director DeBries and Carmen Gia's anthem "Keep It Gay," "If You've Got it, Flaunt it," "Where Did We Go Right?" and a duet for Bloom and Ulla called "That Face." That final number, which elevates Huffman's Ulla from the breasty visual joke in the movie to a full-fledged character seeking a romance with Bloom, is the first thing Tony Award-winning director-choreographer and Producers helmer Susan Stroman heard upon meeting Brooks.  
  
"Mel Brooks said he was going to come over. I never met him before, so I was very nervous; I was a big fan. I open my front door, never met him before, [and I'm] looking at Mel Brooks. He starts singing and dancing - full out - a song from _The Producers_ he'd written called "That Face." He danced down my long hallway and ended up on top of my sofa and then he said 'Hello,'" she said. That fits Brooks' cut-up personality, but he's serious when it comes to the creation of his Broadway _Producers_. "It's a love letter to Broadway and it's really a backstage musical. It should have always been a Broadway musical. The satire, the irony, _Springtime for Hitler_ , all that craziness."  
  
It took a phone call from producer and DreamWorks co-creator David Geffen, who insisted the show should be done, to really inspire Brooks. Although Geffen dropped the project to concentrate on DreamWorks, Brooks found a second inspiration in Stroman. "Susan Stroman really pushed us in the right direction. See, you know things, but you don't. You don't know that songs can't be entertainments, they can't be frivolous, they have to either tell you who the characters are or move the story. She's really the genius behind this," he said, explaining that Stroman helped focus his songwriting.  
  
Certainly he hopes for a better reception from the critics for the musical than he received for the film. " _The Producers_ got killed in the _New York Times_ when it first came out. Bad reviews. You know the movie only got about two or three good reviews when it came out," Brooks said.  
  
 _The Producers_ will open April 19 at the St. James Theatre. Chicago sees the new tuner first with a run at the Cadillac Palace Theatre Feb. 1-25 before Broadway previews begin March 22.

* * *

"Is Miramax a Sinking Ship?", _The Hollywood Reporter_ , January 27, 2001

Things are certainly not looking good for Miramax Films these days. The 22-year-old company founded by Bob and Harvey Weinstein and formerly a crown jewel of Disney has been struggling mightily ever since the scandals that led to Harvey Weinstein's ouster. Furthermore, the film Miramax had been promoting and pushing for Oscar gold at the time, _Shakespeare in Love_ , lost the most important nominations for Best Director, Best Actor and Best Picture, even with winning other notable Oscars including Best Actress for Gwyneth Paltrow and the Best Supporting Actress award for Judi Dench for her portrayal of Queen Elizabeth I in that film. Losing Best Picture to Steven Spielberg's _Saving Private Ryan,_ Best Director to Spielberg, Best Actor to Tom Hanks, and seeing _Ryan_ win a total of seven awards compared to _Shakespeare'_ s six added up to a firm rebuke that definitely seemed to suggest that the bloom was off the rose, and that the company could only be in the throes of a death spiral afterwards.

Those fears seem very well-founded. British producer Daniel Battsek, who took Weinstein's place, certainly has the pedigree and talent to fill the void, but he doesn't have the press savvy that Weinstein had at his disposal. This was most apparent in the brushup with Charlize Theron, when he ejected her from John Frankenheimer's _Reindeer Games_ and replaced her with Shannen Doherty, claiming that after giving birth to her twins Edward and Olivia, she was too heavy to play her intended role. Theron of course went on to announce the founding of Springbok Productions with her husband, Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain, which will be releasing its first project this spring. Furthermore, the fiasco over the film effectively made male lead Ben Affleck announce that he was planning a hiatus from most films, with the exception of appearing in Kevin Smith's upcoming _Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back_ , and founding a production company, Pearl Street Films, with friend and partner Matt Damon. When all was said and done, there was not even a boost in the sense of "what's all the drama about? Let's see what caused such a fuss," as _Reindeer Games_ was an abysmal failure with critics and at the box office.

While there have been bright spots still, Miramax's output has suffered during the last two years, with diminishing returns. And Weinstein's misdeeds and Miramax's reversal of fortunes have had splash effects elsewhere. DreamWorks Pictures was made to rein in their Oscar campaign for Sam Mendes' _American Beauty_ , despite its massive critical acclaim and box office returns, because of the nature of the plot, and ended up with only one nomination, for Kevin Spacey for Best Actor, which it did not win. (DreamWorks certainly did not suffer too long in that regard, as Ridley Scott's _Gladiator_ has the potential to win big this year, as well as Cameron Crowe's _Almost Famous_ , because Crowe's insistence on having his director's cut be the version released in theaters, which led to it making a modest profit and big hopes for Kate Hudson winning Best Actress for her portrayal of Penny Lane.) It seems undeniable that Miramax, once one of the biggest emerging powerhouses in the film industry, is now flailing about miserably, its various "post-Harvey" projects failing to gain any traction.

The other major problem is that without Weinstein, there is no real singular figure that could be considered the main mover and shaker in Hollywood, the one that everyone flocks to and wants to work with, which of course could be more of a good thing. "In many ways, Harvey Weinstein basically had attracted a cult of personality," says a former Miramax staffer. "That's not a particularly healthy way to operate. If business is far more amorphous, maybe it'll be a better way for the cream of the crop to make themselves known and rise to the surface. Plus, having it be more competitive in that regard could really help matters especially regarding how the studios and their boards operate."

None of this helps Miramax itself, which is strongly hinted to be on its last legs. Rumors are spreading that the newcomers that everyone can't stop talking about, Springbok, will snap up Miramax in a merger, or that Disney will reclaim the library of Miramax films and now have them under the Touchstone Pictures banner.

* * *

Interview with INXS frontman Michael Hutchence by Molly Meldrum, February 5, 2001

Q: So, this is a big year for you and INXS. You have a deal with the second new label you've had in the last 5 years.  
A: Yeah, after our deal with Atlantic Records expired back in the '90s, we had a deal signed with Mercury Records in 1996, we delivered _Elegantly Wasted_ for them the following year. They also released my solo album in '98 and our followup album to _EW_ in 2000. But they weren't quite suiting our needs as much as we thought they would, or that they promised us. Then when Universal/Interscope took them over when they bought PolyGram, they dropped us like a rock last year, anyways. We decided to wait a while, see where things in the industry ended up. Then, when this company, Springbok Productions, got formed, and their record label, Exploitation Records, announced they were really interested in signing us with a real sweetheart deal, we jumped at the chance, especially when they said they'd relaunch the last album. They also gave me a deal for any solo work I'd do.  
Q: You also ended up switching managers again during this time. Chris Murphy, your old manager, left in '96, but now he's back in the fold.  
A: Yeah, well, no disrespect to his replacements, Paul Craig and Martha Troup. They're nice people, I'm still friends with them, and Martha manages my solo career. But Chris knows us like no one else does, he's had a lot of great experience knowing how best to promote us. But even he needs help. That's why Irving Azoff is also co-managing us. This is the guy The Eagles say, "he may be Satan, but he's _our_ Satan." He's got a mammoth client list and he has all the connections to radio, MTV, VH1, record stores and promoters. Why wouldn't we take advantage of that?  
Q: You think this will really help change the dynamic of things, make INXS real big again?  
A: I don't know if we'll ever be as big again as we were when _Kick_ or _X_ came out, when we were headlining Wembley Stadium, selling out Madison Square Garden, places like that. But we'll certainly be in the running to really get decent-sized crowds, like 10,000 seat arenas or the amphitheater circuit. I think between Chris and Irv, we'll definitely be pulling in new crowds again, getting a lot more exposure, be able to ensure our work is heard. That just wasn't happening the way we thought it should during _Elegantly Wasted_ , I'm sorry to say. Not that we think that album was a mistake, we're still proud of it, it's just a learning experience.  
Q: Michael, you've also had a lot of changes happen in your personal life since that period as well. For starters, you've been living in Australia again the last few years after living in England and gallivanting around Europe much of the '90s.  
A: Well, I always knew I'd come back. I mean, Sydney is one of the best cities in the entire world, especially for the new millennium. I like being back among my family, seeing them on a regular basis. Even when I wasn't living here, I've always basically positioned myself as an ambassador for Australia and its music. Even when the critics back home weren't being so kind to us!  
Q: The other big thing that has been happening to you, of course, is regarding your love life. You broke up with Paula Yates right on the eve of the Australian dates for _Elegantly Wasted_ , after two years of personal hell for you, insisting you were meant for each other, taking on Bob Geldof in the press.  
A: That's really something else. I thought Paula really cared for me as much as I'd fallen for her, and our daughter was representative of that. But around the time we were getting ready for the Lose Your Head Tour, Nirvana were in town, because they were doing that co-headlining tour with Guns N' Roses. Kurt Cobain himself came to drop in on our rehearsal at Gore Hill, and we began talking, mentioning how at the time, the plan was for Paula to get custody of her daughters with Bob, move to Australia together with Tiger and me; they were supposed to come down for the tour. Kurt said he thought something was off about it all. Firstly, he said, "Do you really think you can win against Sir Bob, the hero of Live Aid? Do you not understand the reason the British press is against you is because they feel you stole his wife, and they're going to defend him because of his reputation? They'll never leave you alone as long as you and Paula are together. And if they're on you this much for taking his wife, what will they say if you take his kids? Besides, there's no chance in hell Paula will get custody, or that he'll let the girls go to visit you on tour." Lots of people, especially the band, had told me that before, but now, for some reason, Kurt was the one who got to me, especially when he said that Paula must have been tipping off the press to constantly invade on us no matter where we went, even areas that should've been private and secluded from them.  
Q: But that can't explain it all, can it?  
A: I've never revealed this before, but Paula was really wanting us to marry soon, and she was getting threatening and toxic, saying she'd harm Tiger and herself if I refused her. That night, after I met my dad for dinner, I called Paula, she said the same thing, especially after saying the holiday with her girls was off because Bob wouldn't allow it. If Kurt hadn't talked to me, I probably would've responded differently, but now I just let her have it, saying I could see her for who she was now, that she was just using me all along. So after the tour, I was gonna collect Tiger and move out. And I did, her threats were just shown to be idle and impotent.  
Q: Have you been dating since you came home?  
A: No, I needed some time to collect myself, focus on the music and my girl. Being single for a while is needed, because I don't want to make another mistake.  
Q: What about Helena (Christensen, former girlfriend)? Have you been talking to her since you broke up with Paula?  
A: Once in a while. We're still very good friends, even after I broke up with her for Paula.  
Q: Is a romantic rekindling in the cards?  
A: I'm not getting ahead of myself. I can't say what's going to happen. If that does end up being what happens, so be it. But I'm not going to predict either way.  
Q: Will you ever find a woman that suits you and your daughter?  
A: I don't know. Anything's possible.

* * *

"Springbok Productions: Kurt Cobain and Charlize Theron Roll the Dice," by Peter Edmonston, _Forbes_ , February 19, 2001

Springbok is the unlikeliest of companies, with a thoroughly bizarre list of people involved. The arena-packing god of the grunge movement, Kurt Cobain; his second wife, the earnest and slowly emerging talent, Charlize Theron; legendary music and film promoter and producer Jerry Weintraub; emerging producer Jennifer Todd, who is also the company's CEO; and many of the founders' friends and peers. Among those that have invested in the fledgling company already are the likes of Jerry Cantrell and Layne Staley of Alice in Chains, Chris Cornell of Soundgarden, Michael Stipe of REM, Scott Weiland of Stone Temple Pilots, actor Chris Farley, recently retired Miami Dolphins star quarterback Dan Marino, venture capitalists Tim Draper and Steve Jurvetson, Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, Starbucks CEO Howard Schwartz, Oracle founder Larry Ellison, CJ Group heiress Miky Lee, former Kentucky governor and fast food franchisee John Y. Brown, Jr., Virgin Group founder Richard Branson, recently retired General Electric CEO Jack Welch, mammothly successful music manager Irving Azoff (now also helping lead Springbok's record label Exploitation Records in addition to being rumored to take over as Nirvana's manager), and comics industry veterans like Jim Lee.

Using the money provided by these people, as well as drawing on Cobain's Nirvana royalties, Theron's salaries from films, and their various investments (Planet Hollywood, Miami Subs Pizza & Grill, Robert Zemeckis' back to back successes of _What Lies Beneath_ and _Cast Away_ , and the recent ABC miniseries _Life with Judy Garland: Me & My Shadows_), Springbok has amassed a pot of billions to draw from and begin. Already, their headquarters, 1087 acres in Playa Vista, California, which houses the first studio built from scratch since the Great Depression and the largest studio in North America, and a complete small town surrounding it as well, has been completed and gone online, all for the price of $750 million. This comes as Springbok's debut project, a film adaptation of _Ghost in the Shell_ by Sony and directed by Alex Proyas, is on the verge of being released. They've also set a long-term release deal with Blockbuster Video as the initial release and distributors for their projects on home video, as well as supporting the company's massive reorganization to branch out beyond brick-and-mortar retail to selling and renting DVDs by mail, creating vending machine kiosks for short-term rentals in places like supermarkets and gas station food marts, and creating a focus on streaming video-on-demand via the Internet.

Springbok seems poised to enter the world of various different forms of media. Done well and as close to perfect as possible, Springbok could emerge as the next big powerhouse, with billions of dollars in annual revenue and potentially the greatest amount of influence in Hollywood. Done poorly, it will be a crushing and humiliating defeat and considered the greatest act of hubris yet. "It is truly time to sink or swim and see where things end up," an industry insider says. "We've been waiting almost two years, waiting to see if it's worth all the hype. It has to yield results now, or it will fall apart."

Everything is riding on the outcome of _Ghost in the Shell_ to see how far Springbok will fly. Is this a truly serious venture, or a flash in the pan destined to join the ranks of many vanity labels since the Beatles launched Apple Corps?

* * *

"Q&A: Chris Farley," _Newsweek_ , February 22, 2001

Q: You haven't exactly emerged to mention new projects since _Shrek_ and _When The Laughter Stopped_. Things like _The Gelfin_ and your role in _Meet the Parents_ happened without any word from you beforehand. What is happening?  
A: Well, two movies I think you'll be very surprised by shall be out this year. Other than that, DreamWorks is thinking about doing a _Shrek 2,_ and I'd be delighted if that happens. The main problem is that Janeane (Gaofalo) doesn't really want to do it, so there might have to be a new Fiona. I am, however, looking over this old script that John Belushi wrote with Don Novello, _Noble Rot_ , when I was visiting with Don at his recording sessions for _Atlantis: The Lost Empire_. I think this is a lost gem that needs to get made, and I'd like to do it.  
Q: Is it true that Adam Sandler invited you to appear in _The Waterboy_ and _Little Nicky_ , but you turned both down?  
A: I'm not gonna say anything negative about Adam or his movies. He's my friend, and whatever makes him happy, I'm happy with it. Sometimes people are gonna get and like what you're doing, sometimes not. I'm still trying to learn that myself.  
Q: What about a Matt Foley movie?  
A: Somewhere along the way, that'll happen. I can promise you that.

* * *

"Miramax Shuts Doors, Disney Reclaims Library," by Adam Dawtrey, _Variety_ , March 3, 2001

Miramax Films officially announced today that it is shutting down all operations, due to massive operating losses in both profits and reputation that were simply insurmountable. Mass layoffs are expected to occur. Meanwhile, Miramax's former parent, The Walt Disney Company, will repurchase the Miramax name and library for the rock-bottom price of $6 million, a tenth of what Disney originally paid to buy it back in 1993. Miramax will now be folded into Disney's Touchstone Pictures banner, and its library added to Touchstone's filmography. Miramax's sub-imprint, Dimension Films, will fully retired. All new forthcoming Miramax and Dimension projects will be split either between Disney's Touchstone Pictures or Hollywood Pictures imprints, or have the option to farm out projects to be released by other studios.

"This is a sad day for Miramax and for filmmaking in general," Miramax head Daniel Battsek said. "It is simply a massive loss for all of us, and a name that represents quality, fine drama, and artistic merit, has to be lost. But we remain proud of what we at Miramax have achieved over the years, that we entertained and mentally invigorated film lovers everywhere, and we are happy and pleased that Disney will maintain great stewardship of our legacy."

"We are quite proud to have Miramax back in our corner and to officially merge it with Touchstone and Hollywood Pictures," Walt Disney Studios chair Peter Schneider said. "Miramax represents quality filmmaking, and artistic expression, and the Touchstone and Hollywood imprints have been happy to do likewise, showing that Disney is more than strictly focusing on family-friendly entertainment. The value of these films cannot be estimated, and we will make sure that audiences will continue to enjoy these films for years to come."

"I am quite happy with the results of today's news," said Michael Eisner, CEO of The Walt Disney Company. "I knew back in 1993 that Miramax represented a massive quality that added significant value to Disney, and was certainly sad by the necessity of having to let it go. Now we are back, and we will take good care of it and ensure that its legacy will endure."

Miramax Films had been founded in 1979 by Bob and Harvey Weinstein, and made a name for itself in the distribution of indie films and finding and nurturing artistic talent. The company had been buffeted by bad publicity when Harvey Weinstein's history of sexual assault had been exposed two years ago, leading to his ouster from the company and a humiliating Oscar defeat of its then-current film, _Shakespeare in Love_ , to Steven Spielberg's _Saving Private Ryan_.

* * *

"Is Enron Overpriced?" by Bethany McLean, _Fortune_ , March 6, 2001 **  
  
**_It's in a bunch of complex businesses. Its financial statements are nearly impenetrable. So why is Enron trading at such a huge multiple?_  
  
In Hollywood parlance, the "It Girl" is someone who commands the spotlight at any given moment -- you know, like Jennifer Lopez or recent Academy Award Best Actress winner Kate Hudson (who won for her portrayal of Penny Lane in Cameron Crowe's _Almost Famous_ , which Crowe and DreamWorks Pictures state is because both of them pressed to allow Crowe's full director's cut of 2 hours 35 minutes to be released, rather than excise any material, which also helped it become modestly successful in the box office as well). Wall Street is a far less glitzy place, but there's still such a thing as an "It Stock." Right now, that title belongs to Enron, the Houston energy giant. While tech stocks were bombing at the box office last year, fans couldn't get enough of Enron, whose shares returned 89%. By almost every measure, the company turned in a virtuoso performance: Earnings increased 25%, and revenues more than doubled, to over $100 billion. Not surprisingly, the critics are gushing. "Enron has built unique and, in our view, extraordinary franchises in several business units in very large markets," says Goldman Sachs analyst David Fleischer.  
  
Along with "It" status come high multiples and high expectations. Enron now trades at roughly 55 times trailing earnings. That's more than 2 1/2 times the multiple of a competitor like Duke Energy, more than twice that of the S&P 500, and about on a par with new-economy sex symbol Cisco Systems. Enron has an even higher opinion of itself. At a late-January meeting with analysts in Houston, the company declared that it should be valued at $126 a share, more than 50% above current levels. "Enron has no shame in telling you what it's worth," says one portfolio manager, who describes such gatherings as "revival meetings." Indeed, First Call says that 13 of Enron's 18 analysts rate the stock a buy.  
  
But for all the attention that's lavished on Enron, the company remains largely impenetrable to outsiders, as even some of its admirers are quick to admit. Start with a pretty straightforward question: How exactly does Enron make its money? Details are hard to come by because Enron keeps many of the specifics confidential for what it terms "competitive reasons." And the numbers that Enron does present are often extremely complicated. Even quantitatively minded Wall Streeters who scrutinize the company for a living think so. "If you figure it out, let me know," laughs credit analyst Todd Shipman at S&P. "Do you have a year?" asks Ralph Pellecchia, Fitch's credit analyst, in response to the same question.  
  
To skeptics, the lack of clarity raises a red flag about Enron's pricey stock. Even owners of the stock aren't uniformly sanguine. "I'm somewhat afraid of it," admits one portfolio manager. And the inability to get behind the numbers combined with ever higher expectations for the company may increase the chance of a nasty surprise. "Enron is an earnings-at-risk story,'' says Chris Wolfe, the equity market strategist at J.P. Morgan's private bank, who despite his remark is an Enron fan. "If it doesn't meet earnings, [the stock] could implode."  
  
What's clear is that Enron isn't the company it was a decade ago. In 1990 around 80% of its revenues came from the regulated gas-pipeline business. But Enron has been steadily selling off its old-economy iron and steel assets and expanding into new areas. In 2000, 95% of its revenues and more than 80% of its operating profits came from "wholesale energy operations and services." This business, which Enron pioneered, is usually described in vague, grandiose terms like the "financialization of energy"--but also, more simply, as "buying and selling gas and electricity." In fact, Enron's view is that it can create a market for just about anything; as if to underscore that point, the company announced last year that it would begin trading excess broadband capacity.  
  
But describing what Enron does isn't easy, because what it does is mind-numbingly complex. Newly-minted CEO Jeff Skilling, who took over from founder Kenneth Lay only weeks ago, calls Enron a "logistics company" that ties together supply and demand for a given commodity and figures out the most cost-effective way to transport that commodity to its destination. Enron also uses derivatives, like swaps, options, and forwards, to create contracts for third parties and to hedge its exposure to credit risks and other variables. If you thought Enron was just an energy company, have a look at its SEC filings. In its 1999 annual report the company wrote that "the use of financial instruments by Enron's businesses may expose Enron to market and credit risks resulting from adverse changes in commodity and equity prices, interest rates, and foreign exchange rates."  
  
Analyzing Enron can be deeply frustrating. "It's very difficult for us on Wall Street with as little information as we have," says Fleischer, who is a big bull. (The same is true for Enron's competitors, but "wholesale operations" are usually a smaller part of their business, and they trade at far lower multiples.) "Enron is a big black box," gripes another analyst. Without having access to each and every one of Enron's contracts and its minute-by-minute activities, there isn't any way to independently answer critical questions about the company. For instance, many Wall Streeters believe that the current volatility in gas and power markets is boosting Enron's profits, but there is no way to know for sure. "The ability to develop a somewhat predictable model of this business for the future is mostly an exercise in futility," wrote Bear Stearns analyst Robert Winters in a recent report.  
  
To some observers, Enron resembles a Wall Street firm. Indeed, people commonly refer to the company as "the Goldman Sachs of energy trading." That's meant as a compliment. But the fact that part of Goldman's business is inherently risky and impenetrable to outsiders is precisely the reason that Goldman, despite its powerful franchise, trades at 17 times trailing earnings--or less than one-third of Enron's P/E. And as Long Term Capital taught us back in 1998, the best-laid hedges, even those designed by geniuses, can go disastrously wrong. "Trying to get a good grip on Enron's risk profile is challenging," says Shipman.  
  
Nor at the moment is Enron's profitability close to that of brokerages (which, in fairness, do tend to be more leveraged). While Wall Street firms routinely earn north of 20% returns on their equity--Goldman's ROE last year was 27%--Enron's rate for the 12 months ended in September (the last period for which balance sheet information is available) was 13%. Even less appealing is Enron's return on invested capital (a measure including debt), which is around 7%. That's about the same rate of return you get on far less risky U.S. Treasuries.  
  
Enron vehemently disagrees with any characterization of its business as black box-like. It also dismisses any comparison to a securities firm. "We are not a trading company," CFO Andrew Fastow emphatically declares. In Enron's view, its core business--where the company says it makes most of its money--is delivering a physical commodity, something a Goldman Sachs doesn't do. And unlike a trading firm, which thrives when prices are going wild, Enron says that volatility has no effect on its profits--other than to increase customers, who flock to the company in turbulent times. Both Skilling, who describes Enron's wholesale business as "very simple to model," and Fastow note that the growth in Enron's profitability tracks the growth in its volumes almost perfectly. "People who raise questions are people who have not gone through [our business] in detail and who want to throw rocks at us," says Skilling. Indeed, Enron dismisses criticism as ignorance or as sour grapes on the part of analysts who failed to win its investment-banking business. The company also blames short-sellers for talking down Enron from its all-time high of $90 a share back in August. As for the details about how it makes money, Enron says that's proprietary information, sort of like Coca-Cola's secret formula. Fastow, who points out that Enron has 1217 trading "books" for different commodities, says, "We don't want anyone to know what's on those books. We don't want to tell anyone where we're making money."  
  
In addition to its commodities business, Enron has another division called Assets and Investments that is every bit as mysterious. This business involves building power plants around the world, operating them, selling off pieces of them, "invest[ing] in debt and equity securities of energy and communications-related business," as Enron's filings note, and other things.  
  
Actually, analysts don't seem to have a clue what's in Assets and Investments or, more to the point, what sort of earnings it will generate. Enron's results from that part of its business tend to be quite volatile--profits fell from $325 million in the second quarter of 1999 to $55 million in the second quarter of 2000. In written reports, Morgan Stanley chalked up the decline to the poor performance of Enron's "significant number of investments" in telecom stocks; Dain Rauscher Wessels blamed it on a lack of asset sales.  
  
In any event, some analysts seem to like the fact that Enron has some discretion over the results it reports in this area. In a footnote to its 1999 financials, Enron notes that it booked "pretax gains from sales of merchant assets and investments totaling $756 million, $628 million, and $136 million" in 1999, 1998, and 1997. "This is an enormous earnings vehicle, which can often be called upon when and if market conditions require," notes UBS Warburg analyst Ron Barone. Not everyone is so chipper. "We are concerned they are liquidating their asset base and booking it as recurring revenue, especially in Latin America," says analyst Andre Meade at Commerzbank--who has a hold rating on the stock. At the least, these sorts of hard-to-predict earnings are usually assigned a lower multiple.  
  
There are other concerns: Despite the fact that Enron has been talking about reducing its debt, in the first nine months of 2000 its debt went up substantially. During this period, Enron issued a net $3.9 billion in debt, bringing its total debt up to a net $13 billion at the end of September and its debt-to-capital ratio up to 50%, vs. 39% at the end of 1999. Nor does Enron make life easy for those who measure the health of a business by its cash flow from operations. In 1999 its cash flow from operations fell from $1.6 billion the previous year to $1.2 billion. In the first nine months of 2000, the company generated just $100 million in cash. (In fact, cash flow would have been negative if not for the $410 million in tax breaks it received from employees' exercising their options.)  
  
But Enron says that extrapolating from its financial statements is misleading. The fact that Enron's cash flow this year was meager, at least when compared with earnings, was partly a result of its wholesale business. Accounting standards mandate that its assets and liabilities from its wholesale business be "marked to market"--valued at their market price at a given moment in time. Changes in the valuation are reported in earnings. But these earnings aren't necessarily cash at the instant they are recorded. Skilling says that Enron can convert these contracts to cash anytime it chooses by "securitizing" them, or selling them off to a financial institution. Enron then receives a "servicing fee," but Skilling says that all the risks (for example, changes in the value of the assets and liabilities) are then transferred to the buyer. That's why, he says, Enron's cash flow will be up dramatically, while debt will be "way down, way down" when the company publishes its full year-end results, which are due out soon.  
  
That's good, because Enron will need plenty of cash to fund its new, high-cost initiatives: namely, the high-cost buildout of its broadband operations. In order to facilitate its plan to trade excess bandwidth capacity, Enron is constructing its own network. This requires big capital expenditures. It also has long talked about rolling out streaming video for computers and TVs, primarily through the use of DSL broadband connections (considered only about a quarter of the speed as fully wireless broadband routers and connections, though those are not yet widespread or inexpensive enough for most consumers to buy yet), essentially taking on cable and telecom companies on their own turf, which would be risky enough even if the dot-com companies weren't in such dire straits. This is even more alarming, especially given that it entered an exclusive 20-year video on demand service agreement with Hollywood Video, long considered a second-string service compared to rental kings Blockbuster (in fact, Enron hoped to make such a deal with Blockbuster, but the company, already making its own long-term plans for video on demand and changing the paradigm of movie rental, scoffed at the offer because they didn't want to share the driver's seat with Enron). So broadband had better be a good business. Both Enron and some of the analysts who cover it think it already is. Included in the $126 a share that Enron says it's worth is $40 a share--or $35 billion--for broadband. Several of Enron's analysts value broadband at $25 a share, or roughly $22 billion (and congratulate themselves for being conservative). But $22 billion seems like a high valuation for a business that reported $408 million of revenues and $60 million of losses in 2000. Not all analysts are so aggressive. "Valuing the broadband business is an "extremely difficult, uncertain exercise at this point in time," notes Bear Stearns' Winters, who thinks that broadband, while promising, is worth some $5 a share today.  
  
Of course everything could go swimmingly. Enron has told analysts that it plans to sell between $2 billion and $4 billion of assets, such as the West Coast-based electricity provider Portland General and a host of international assets, over the next 12 months. The bullish scenario for Enron is that the proceeds from those sales will reduce debt, and as earnings from new businesses kick in, the company's return on invested capital will shoot upward. Along with broadband, Enron has ambitious plans to create big businesses trading a huge number of other commodities, from pulp and paper to data storage to advertising time and space. Perhaps most promising is its Enron Energy Services business, which manages all the energy needs of big commercial and industrial companies. Skilling has told analysts that its new businesses will generate a return on invested capital of about 25% over the long run.  
  
But all of these expectations are based on what Wolfe, the J.P. Morgan strategist, calls "a little bit of the China syndrome"--in other words, if you get x% of y enormous market, you'll get z in revenues. For instance, Enron says the global market for broadband and storage services will expand from $155 billion in 2001 to somewhere around $383 billion in 2004. "Even a modest market share and thin margins provide excellent potential here," writes Ed Tirello, a Deutsche Bank Alex. Brown senior power strategist. The problem, as we know from innumerable failed dot-coms, is that the y enormous market doesn't always materialize on schedule. And Enron isn't leaving itself a lot of room for the normal wobbles and glitches that happen in any developing business.  
  
In the end, it boils down to a question of faith. "Enron is no black box," says Goldman's Fleischer. "That's like calling Michael Jordan a black box just because you don't know what he's going to score every quarter." Then again, Jordan never had to promise to hit a certain number of shots in order to please investors.

* * *

“As Trade Center Talks Stumble, No. 2 Bidder Gets Another Chance,” by Charles V. Bagli, _The New York Times_ , March 20, 2001

Despite round-the-clock negotiations, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey failed to come to terms yesterday on a $3.25 billion deal that would have given Vornado Realty Trust control of the World Trade Center, the largest office complex in the country. The bistate authority said it would now open exclusive talks with Silverstein Properties, the second-place bidder for the 10.6 million-square-foot complex and 110-story Twin Towers. 

The authority failed to complete the deal with Vornado because ''seven or eight substantial issues'' remained unresolved yesterday, according to several authority commissioners. One sticking point was the company's refusal to put up $100 million in a show of good faith as the contract was signed but before the deal closed, two commissioners said. 

The authority's decision to break off talks was a blow to Vornado and its chairman, Steven Roth, a real estate tycoon with a reputation for bare-knuckled negotiations. By all accounts, Mr. Roth wanted an international icon like the trade center for his company's roster of 20 Manhattan office towers, totaling more than 15 million square feet of space. 

Mr. Roth could not be reached by telephone for comment yesterday. ''He's very disappointed,'' said a spokesman for Mr. Roth, Howard J. Rubenstein. ''He tried very hard to make a deal.'' 

Some authority executives feared the turnabout would become a nightmare for the authority, because Vornado's absence could drive down the sale price, or at least weaken the agency's bargaining position. It did not help, they said, that the roiling stock market served as a backdrop for the negotiations. 

But real estate executives said that both Silverstein and Boston Properties still very much want to buy the lease for the trade center. With stock prices declining sharply, they said stable, high-quality real estate assets were actually more attractive. 

''Nothing has happened that makes the World Trade Center any less desirable,'' said Mary Ann Tighe, a vice chairwoman of Insignia/ESG, a real estate brokerage firm. ''It's a world-class trophy. They're not going to have trouble finding people to step up.'' 

The Silverstein group, which includes Westfield America, a publicly traded real estate company, is not unknown to the authority. Larry A. Silverstein, the developer, heads the company and owns 7 World Trade Center, a 47-story, 2 million-square-foot tower that is part of the complex but is not owned by the authority. 

In 1998, Governors George E. Pataki of New York and Christie Whitman of New Jersey decided to get out of the real estate business by selling the World Trade Center. The Port Authority had trimmed a list of more than 30 potential buyers to 3. The authority's decision yesterday came after some high drama, brinksmanship and the authority's decision to extend their deadline by five days to try to get a contract with Vornado. 

Earlier this year, Vornado submitted a blockbuster $3.25 billion bid designed to pre-empt the competition. The offer from the Silverstein team trailed by $600 million, while Boston Properties and Brookfield were $750 million behind. 

Silverstein subsequently raised its bid to $3.22 billion, and the other group pushed its offer to $3.1 billion. But the authority selected Vornado as the winning bidder on February 22. It gave Vornado 20 days to sign a contract, or the authority would open talks with the other bidders. 

Two days before the deadline expired, Vornado insisted on a 39-year lease. The authority, which had required a 99-year lease, regarded the gambit as a last-minute attempt to wring a concession and change what had been a nonnegotiable item. Dissatisfied with Vornado's contract offer, the board decided last Wednesday to begin negotiations with the second bidder. Within an hour of being notified, Mr. Silverstein told the authority he was ready to go. 

Before Mr. Silverstein could start, Mr. Roth telephoned key officials, convincing them that he was still seriously interested in a deal, even for 99 years. According to authority commissioners, Mr. Roth said he would put up $100 million as a show of good faith. But on Thursday morning, according to authority executives and commissioners, Mr. Roth told the agency that Vornado's board was unwilling to go along with him. 

Mr. Roth did ultimately return to the table, and the authority gave Vornado until Monday to make a deal. Despite laboring over the weekend and until Sunday night, the two sides remained apart on a number of issues. ''Vornado is very difficult to deal with,'' said one top executive at the authority. ''I think the time factor was insurmountable.'' 

Yesterday afternoon, the four commissioners responsible for overseeing the sale - Peter S. Kalikow, William J. Martini, Michael J. Chasanoff and Kathleen A. Donovan - decided it was time to move on to the next bidder. ''It's both a surprise and yet completely predictable given Vornado's historic negotiating approach,'' Ms. Tighe said. ''These guys know how to win a bid, but they also know how to attempt to restructure the deal to make it more favorable.''

* * *

"Break a Leg: _The Producers_ Opens at Bway’s St. James, April 19, by David Lefkowitz and Christine Ehren, _Playbill_ , April 17, 2001 **  
  
**_Gentlemen, it is magic time._  
  
Franz Liebkind uttered those immortal words moments before the curtain went up on "Springtime for Hitler" in Mel Brooks' classic film comedy, _The Producers_. Well, now that _The Producers_ is a big Broadway musical, Liebkind doesn't actually say those words (he can't — he's too busy rushing into the theatre to play Hitler), but April 19 is, indeed, magic time for the new musical, perhaps the most highly-anticipated show of the season.  
  
By pretty much all accounts, _The Producers_ , Mel Brooks and Thomas Meehan's stage adaptation of Brooks' movie, reaches Broadway in as healthy shape as a new musical could wish for. The show's tryout at Chicago's Cadillac Palace, which ended Feb. 25, was sold out before it even started (on Feb. 1), reviews were "amazing," according to spokespersons at the Barlow-Hartman press office, and the production pulled into the St. James Theatre for previews beginning March 21 with "a healthy advance" (the _Daily News_ reports (April 18) a $14.5 million advance on a show capitalized at $10.5 million). The show has also received Outer Critics Circle Award nominations for Broadway Musical, Actor (Matthew Broderick and Nathan Lane), Featured Actor (Gary Beach) Featured Actress (Cady Huffman) and Director and Choreographer (Susan Stroman twice).  
  
On March 11, Sony Classical recorded _The Producers_ ' original cast CD at Edison Recording Studios, with Hugh Fordin producing. The CD was released to stores April 17, according to Sony VP of publicity Carol Della Penna (reached April 12).  
  
Fordin told _Playbill On Line_ among the items on the disk are an overture that was written for the production but, at present, isn't in the show. Songs in the Mel Brooks-Thomas Meehan tuner include "The King of Broadway," "Der Guten Tag Hop Clop," "Keep it Gay," "If You've Got It, Flaunt It," "That Face," "`Till Him," "Prisoners of Love" and, of course, "Springtime for Hitler." Roger Bart, Gary Beach, Cady Huffman and Brad Oscar co-star alongside Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick in _The Producers_ , which also boasts designer Robin Wagner (a Tony winner for _City of Angels_ and _On the Twentieth Century_ ) on sets, William Ivey Long (a Tony winner for _Nine_ ) on costumes, Peter Kaczorowski on lighting and Steve Kennedy on sound. Glen Kelly serves as musical arranger and supervisor; Patrick Brady is musical director and vocal arranger. Doug Besterman provided the orchestrations.  
  
Director-choreographer Susan Stroman made nips and tucks throughout the Chi-town run, including the publicized removal of a _Gypsy_ song parody that Arthur Laurents and Stephen Sondheim objected to. Otherwise the only other major glitch was in Ron Orbach's knee, which was injured in rehearsal. Orbach, who played German Nazi deifier Franz Liebkind, missed the previews and opening night but returned to the production Feb. 20. His spirit was willing but the body wasn't ready, and Orbach left again before the end of the Chicago run. His replacement is the aforementioned Brad Oscar, whose New York credits have included _Aspects of Love_ , _Jekyll & Hyde_ and _Forbidden Broadway_ ). (Oscar's sister is Victoria Oscar, who's been playing Miss Hannigan in the _Annie_ national tour.)  
  
The musical is being produced by Rocco Landesman, SFX Theatrical Group, the Frankel-Viertel-Baruch-Routh Group, Michael Cohl, Rick Steiner, Robert F.X. Sillerman and Mel Brooks, in association with James D. Stern/Douglas Meyer and by special arrangement with StudioCanal. Producer Landesman told _Newsday_ (Dec. 14, 2000) he thought the show was "Pretty damn funny. We're back to that rare, unheard-of genre, musical comedy." The St. James Theatre’s previous tenant, _Swing!_ , closed January 14, 2001. New York/New Jersey's UPN/WOR Channel 9 will offer a two-hour TV special on April 22 that's almost an infomercial of interviews, backstage footage and audience members kvelling. Pat Collins will host the pre-recorded special, which has been taping rehearsal and other segments since mid December 2000.  
  
In _The Producers_ , actor Lane plays Max Bialystock, an overbearing theatrical producer who was once the toast of Broadway but has now fallen on hard times. Broderick is Leo Bloom, a shy accountant who, under Max's tutelage, finally blossoms — albeit into a criminal. Huffman, best known for playing Ziegfeld's Favorite in _The Will Rogers Follies_ , is the leads' sexpot secretary, Ulla. She told the _Daily News_ (April 18) she studied with a dialect coach to master Ulla's accent. "I'd never even heard Swedish spoken before." Beach ( _Beauty and the Beast's_ candelabra) is effete director Roger DeBris; and Orbach ( _Laughter on the 23rd Floor_ ) is unregenerate Nazi playwright, Liebkind. Tony winner Roger Bart ( _You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown_ , Off-Broadway’s _Fully Committed_ ) is Carmen Ghia, Roger's even-more-effeminate manservant.  
  
Other performers include Madelaine Doherty, Kathryn Fitzgerald, Eric Gunhus, Peter Marinos, Jennifer Smith, Ray Wills, Jeffrey Denman, Bryn Dowling, Robert H. Fowler, Adrienne Gibbons, Ida Gilliams, Kimberly Hester, Naomi Kakuk, Jamie LaVerdiere, Matt Loehr, Brad Musgrove, Christina Marie Norrup, Angie L. Schworer, Abe Sylvia and Tracy Terstriep. The role of the florid LSD, the hippie rock singer drafted into playing Adolf Hitler, has been eliminated. LSD's environmental anthem, "Love Power," is also gone. In a major plot-change from the movie, Franz gets to play Hitler — that is, until he literally `breaks a leg' and must be replaced by Roger. Other changes include Leo and Ulla temporarily leaving Max in the lurch, and a happier ending than the film.  
  
Theatregoers can be forgiven for keeping an extra-close eye on every aspect of _The Producers_. Not only is Brooks' 1968 film on many lists as the funniest movie ever made, the plot-line is about Broadway itself. Brooks' Oscar-winning screenplay tells of a larger-than-life but down-on-his-luck Broadway producer who enlists a meek tax accountant, Leo Bloom, to help him get back on top. The scheme is not to mount a hit play but to raise a lot of money, produce a great stinking flop, and then disappear before paying back the investors. What better choice for a disaster than "Springtime For Hitler," a dramatic love-letter to Der Furher penned by a German lunatic living in a tenement? After securing the property, Max and Leo add a flamboyant director to all-but-ensure that "Springtime For Hitler" will be excruciatingly bad. Only it turns out, it's so bad, it's funny...  
  
Back in late March 2000, director-choreographer Stroman ( _Contact, The Music Man_ ) told _Playbill On-Line,_ "We're actually going to do a reading of [Mel's] musical," "He's written the musical and lyrics and the book. Every single page is funny." The stage musical features a dance-off between Hitler and Winston Churchill, an idea only alluded to in the film (“Hitler was a better dancer than Churchill... Hitler was a better painter than Churchill. He could paint an entire house in one afternoon — two coats!”).  
  
Asked whether, even in 2001, audiences might find the material in bad taste, actor Broderick told the _Daily News_ (April 18), "I think a chorus of dancers in SS uniforms forming a kick line is still hilarious and horrifying at the same time. We have to walk through a whole backstage hallway filled with Nazi uniforms. It's horrible and bizarre that you get used to it."  
  
Equity auditions for _The Producers_ were held in mid-August 2000, though the Lane casting was in the works long before that. (In a March 2, 2000 appearance on "The Late Show With David Letterman," Brooks, a guest on the show, pulled a contract for the musical out of his pants and told Lane, who was Letterman’s guest host, to sign it. Brooks told the crowd he wanted Lane to star in the planned stage musical, presumably in the Max Bialystock role originated by Zero Mostel. Lane, who then went on to star in the Roundabout's _The Man Who Came to Dinner_ , agreed.) Broderick's name had been rumored for months, although early reports had Martin Short as Brooks' first choice for the nebbishy Bloom, with Evan Pappas ( _The Immigrant_ ) also considered during the early reading stages.  
  
At a press preview of the show in mid-January, creator Brooks described _The Producers_ as "a love letter to Broadway and it's really a backstage musical. It should have always been a Broadway musical. The satire, the irony, _Springtime for Hitler,_ all that craziness."

* * *

"Silverstein Properties and Westfield win $3.2B World Trade Center lease," PRNewswire, April 27, 2001

Real estate developer Silverstein Properties, in a partnership with Los Angeles-based Westfield America, gained control of New York City's World Trade Center yesterday by signing a 99-year lease worth $3.2 billion. 

When completed this fall, the deal will put control of the largest U.S. office complex into private hands for the first time, and give Westfield America, one of the country’s largest mall owners, a major address to add to its roster of shopping centers. 

Thursday’s deal gives Silverstein Properties control of a 10.6-million-square-foot office complex, which comprises the 100-story Twin Towers, and two nine-story office buildings. The complex also includes a more than 400,000-square-foot concourse mall called the Mall at the World Trade Center. Silverstein already owns a 48-story tower built on land owned by the Port Authority, called 7 World Trade Center. Through a company spokeswoman, Silverstein President Larry Silverstein told SCT that its ownership of that building sparked great interest in buying the entire complex. The World Trade Center was previously managed by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. 

"This is a dream come true," he said. "We will be in control of a prized asset, and we will seek to develop its potential, raising it to new heights." 

Westfield will be responsible for leasing and managing the more than 400,000-square-foot concourse mall, which is part of the downtown complex. Previously named the Mall at the World Trade Center, the retail portion will now be called Westfield Shoppingtown World Trade Center, said Catharine Dickey, vice president of corporate communications for Westfield America. 

_The Wall Street Journal_ reported that Westfield has proposed adding between 150,000 and 250,000 square feet of retail space to the mall. The mall’s sales per square foot are expected to be in the area of $900 by the end of 2001, according to Port Authority officials, making it one of the country’s highest-earning shopping centers. "This is a special opportunity for us,’’ said Westfield CEO Peter Lowy in a statement. "We look forward to putting our management, leasing and development experience to work at this premier property.’’ 

While the bid for the World Trade Center lease was made jointly with Silverstein Properties, the lease was broken in two during final negotiations. Westfield America will make lease payments only on the concourse mall — separate from the payments that Silverstein will make on the office portion, said Dickey, declining to comment on the amount of the payments. Silverstein was the runner-up bidder for the World Trade Center lease, and won the right to negotiate a final agreement after talks with the top bidder, Vornado Realty Trust, Paramus, NJ, broke off last month. Officials at Silverstein declined to elaborate on its future plans for the World Trade Center.

* * *

“Deal Is Signed To Take Over Trade Center,” by Charles V. Bagli, _The New York Times_ , April 27, 2001

Despite some missteps and a last-minute snag, a developer signed a contract yesterday to take control of the 110-story World Trade Center complex in a deal worth $3.2 billion, the largest real estate transaction in New York history. 

The completion of the deal is the end of an effort begun three years ago by Governor George E. Pataki of New York and Christie Whitman, then the governor of New Jersey, to privatize the huge 10.6-million-square-foot office complex. It was built 30 years ago by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey to stimulate development in Lower Manhattan. The governors pledged to use the proceeds from the transaction for new transportation projects. 

A group led by Larry A. Silverstein, a developer, and Westfield America Inc., an owner of shopping centers, signed a 99-year lease yesterday after working nearly 24 hours straight on the agreement. Still, the Port Authority delayed the start of its board meeting yesterday afternoon until the developer delivered a $100 million letter of credit, the first installment on a $616 million down payment. The group will then make annual rent payments to the Port Authority, manage and lease the complex and spend $200 million on capital improvements. 

In recent weeks, the deal was beset by a series of problems - ranging from the enormous difficulty of structuring such a complex deal within a short time to the sudden slowdown in the economy - that scuttled negotiations with one bidder and nearly toppled Mr. Silverstein.The Silverstein group is scheduled to close the deal in July, although it has the option to extend the process for 30 days more. 

''This agreement allows the private sector to bring its expertise to managing this landmark,'' Governor Pataki said in a statement yesterday, ''and it frees Port Authority resources for improvements in airports, tunnels, bridges and other parts of the region's transportation network.'' 

Mr. Silverstein was both tired and ebullient yesterday evening. ''I'm thrilled to pieces,'' he said yesterday. ''I've been looking at the trade center for years, thinking what a great piece of real estate, what a thrill it would be to own it. There's nothing like it in the world.'' Mr. Silverstein owns about 5.5 million square feet of office space downtown, including 7 World Trade Center, a 48-story tower that was built on land owned by the Port Authority. 

Charles A. Gargano, vice chairman of the Port Authority, said the bistate agency would negotiate with the city over payments in lieu of taxes for the property. The World Trade Center paid the city about $29 million last year, but Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani has insisted that the number should be equal to full property taxes, about $100 million. 

The Silverstein group was the second bidder to negotiate for the right to control the trade center complex and its effort nearly collapsed Wednesday, much like the first attempt last month by Vornado Realty Trust, and its chairman, Steven Roth. Worried about the financial viability of Mr. Silverstein's group, the Port Authority was preparing to break off negotiations on Wednesday, when Mr. Silverstein asked for a little more time. The board gave him until yesterday afternoon to come up with a $100 million check and sign 1000 pages of contracts, leases and agreements. 

''The time comes in every transaction when you have to put the pencils down and stop negotiating,'' said Cherrie L. Nanninga, director of real estate for the Port Authority. In the end, she said, there were various trade-offs. The Silverstein group lowered its down payment from $800 million to $616 million but raised its annual rent payment. Mr. Silverstein also had to post a nonrefundable letter of credit, which had many Port Authority executives holding their breath until shortly after 3 PM yesterday. 

The Twin Towers complex opened in the 1970s to poor reviews. But the vast complex soon found a place in the popular culture. King Kong climbed one tower in a remake of the movie classic. And in 1993, a terrorist bomb explosion killed six people and injured more than a thousand. 

In recent years, the complex has filled up with tenants and revenues have improved significantly. Operating income is expected to be more than $200 million this year and continue rising through the decade. The annual rent for Dean Witter, which leases more than a million square feet, will jump by about $21 million starting in May. 

It took New York and New Jersey officials several years even to agree on the decision to put the complex into private hands in 1998, when the Port Authority's advisers estimated that a sale might bring $1.5 billion. 

More than 30 bidders competed for the site, before the Port Authority narrowed the list to three: Vornado, which bid $3.25 billion; the Silverstein group, which offered $3.22 billion; and a joint venture of Brookfield Financial Properties and Boston Properties. 

Some Port Authority executives said that the Brookfield group was considered the strongest contestant but that its bid was the lowest at $3.1 billion. The bistate agency did not want to open itself up to criticism for favoritism, so it opened negotiations last month with Vornado. It gave the company 20 days to come to terms on a deal. 

But when Vornado tried to change the terms of the deal at the last minute, Port Authority officials balked. It was an attractive offer, but the officials feared that the company, which had a reputation as a difficult negotiator, might be stalling for better terms. They did not want to get bogged down in endless rounds of discussion. Mr. Roth is expected to sign a deal with Bloomberg today to build a skyscraper on the Upper East Side after three years of talks. ''They negotiate to the point of nitpicking,'' one official said. ''But they're a good organization.'' 

Ultimately, the Port Authority turned to Mr. Silverstein, though they questioned whether his relatively small organization could handle as large a complex as the trade center. When the deal with Mr. Silverstein nearly collapsed on Wednesday, some commissioners at the Port Authority said they should take the property off the auction block because they had lost all leverage in a cooling real estate market. Rather than suffer that embarrassment, one official said, they persevered with Mr. Silverstein. ''Despite the economy,'' said Lewis M. Eisenberg, chairman of the Port Authority, ''this deal proves that World Trade Center is still the most unique property in the world.''

* * *

" _V_ _ampires_ : New Musical Blood," by Michael Riedel, _The New York Post_ , May 5, 2001 **  
  
**Now that the spring theater season is winding down and there's no excitement about the Tonys – news flash: _The Producers_ is going to win everything – Broadway is turning its attention to future productions. This past week, theater owners and producers shuttled from reading to reading, looking for that next big hit. Among the projects they checked out was _Dance of the Vampires_ , a new $15-20 million musical based on the 1967 Roman Polanski movie _The Fearless Vampire Killers_.  
  
The show, which was given a staged reading at Chelesa Studios on Thursday, is already a monster hit in Austria and Germany. Broadway producers Elizabeth Williams and Anita Waxman ( _The Real Thing_ ) hope to bring it to New York next season.  
  
Jim Steinman – who wrote Meat Loaf's classic _Bat Out of Hell_ album as well as the lyrics for Andrew Lloyd Webber's _Whistle Down the Wind_ – is the driving force behind the show. He has written the score and is co-writing the book with playwright David Ives ( _All in the Timing_ ). He is also co-directing the show with John Caird ( _Jane Eyre),_ also a co-writer.  
  
"Roman directed it in Vienna, but he can't work here because of his legal problems," Steinman said, referring to Polanski's indictment for statutory rape in the 1970s. "He may be the first director who can't work over here because of a statutory rape charge."  
  
Steinman says _Dance of the Vampires_ is an "erotic" musical about a teenage girl who must choose between two lovers – an older, aristocratic vampire and a hunky young vampire hunter. "It's a big, Wagnerian musical with everything you can imagine-sex, blood, action, romance, comedy, all propelled by the score," Steinman says. "It's a fuckin' thrill ride set to music."  
  
The score is all new, except for one song, Steinman's famous "Total Eclipse of the Heart." "I couldn't resist using it," he says of a song that goes, "Once upon time there was light in my life/But now there's only love in the dark." "I actually wrote it for another vampire musical that was based on _Nosferatu_ , but never got produced."  
  
Among the people who attended the reading are Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain and his wife, Charlize Theron, representing their production company Springbok Productions; Jerry Weintraub, Leonard Soloway, Barry and Fran Weissler of _Chicago_ fame, concert promoter Michael Cohl, the world's most famous music manager, Irving Azoff, Tom Hulett and Concerts West, Robert Boyett, Lawrence Horowitz, and Barry Diller and Bill Haber of USA Networks. All the above signed on to help Williams and Waxman bring the production to life. They say the show is indeed operatic, with plenty of luscious Steinman melodies. But some say the mix of bawdy humor and eroticism still needs fine-tuning. And others were too distracted by the lack of air-conditioning in the rehearsal studio to get a strong fix on the show.

* * *

“Madoff tops charts; skeptics ask how,” by Michael Ocrant, _MARHedge_ , May 2001 **  
  
**Mention Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities to anyone working on Wall Street at any time over the last 40 years and you’re likely to get a look of immediate recognition.  
  
After all, Madoff Securities, with its 600 major brokerage clients, is ranked as one of the top three market makers in NASDAQ stocks, cites itself as probably the largest source of order flow for New York Stock Exchange-listed securities, and remains a huge player in the trading of preferred, convertible and other specialized securities instruments.  
  
Beyond that, Madoff operates one of the most successful “third markets” for trading equities after regular exchange hours, and is an active market maker in the European and Asian equity markets. And with a group of partners, it is leading an effort and developing the technology for a new electronic auction market trading system called Primex.  
  
But it’s a safe bet that relatively few Wall Street professionals are aware that Madoff Securities could be categorized as perhaps the best risk-adjusted hedge fund portfolio manager for the last dozen years. Its $6–7 billion in assets under management, provided primarily by three feeder funds, currently would put it in the number one or two spot in the Zurich (formerly MAR) database of more than 1100 hedge funds, and would place it at or near the top of any well-known database in existence defined by assets. More important, perhaps, most of those who are aware of Madoff’s status in the hedge fund world are baffled by the way the firm has obtained such consistent, nonvolatile returns month after month and year after year.  
  
Madoff has reported positive returns for the last 11-plus years in assets managed on behalf of the feeder fund known as Fairfield Sentry, which in providing capital for the program since 1989 has been doing it longer than any of the other feeder funds. Those other funds have demonstrated equally positive track records using the same strategy for much of that period.  
  
Lack of volatility  
  
Those who question the consistency of the returns, though not necessarily the ability to generate the gross and net returns reported, include current and former traders, other money managers, consultants, quantitative analysts and fund-of-funds executives, many of whom are familiar with the so-called split-strike conversion strategy used to manage the assets. These individuals, more than a dozen in all, offered their views, speculation and opinions on the condition that they wouldn’t be identified. They noted that others who use or have used the strategy—described as buying a basket of stocks closely correlated to an index, while concurrently selling out-of-the-money call options on the index and buying out-of-the-money put options on the index—are known to have had nowhere near the same degree of success.  
  
The strategy is generally described as putting on a “collar” in an attempt to limit gains compared to the benchmark index in an up market and, likewise, limit losses to something less than the benchmark in a down market, essentially creating a floor and a ceiling. Madoff’s strategy is designed around multiple stock baskets made up of 30–35 stocks most correlated to the S&P 100 index. In marketing material issued by Fairfield Sentry, the sale of the calls is described as increasing “the standstill rate of return, while allowing upward movement of the stock portfolio to the strike price of the calls.” The puts, according to the same material, are “funded in large part by the sale of the calls, [and] limit the portfolio’s downside. “A bullish or bearish bias can be achieved by adjusting the strike prices of the options, overweighting the puts, or underweighting the calls. However, the underlying value of the S&P 100 puts is always approximately equal to that of the portfolio of stocks,” the marketing document concludes.  
  
Throughout the entire period Madoff has managed the assets, the strategy, which claims to use OTC options almost entirely, has appeared to work with remarkable results. Again, take the Fairfield Sentry fund as the example. It has reported losses of no more than 55 basis points in just four of the past 139 consecutive months, while generating highly consistent gross returns of slightly more than 1.5% a month and net annual returns roughly in the range of 15.0%. Among all the funds on the database in that same period, the Madoff/Fairfield Sentry fund would place at number 16 if ranked by its absolute cumulative returns. Among 423 funds reporting returns over the last five years, most with less money and shorter track records, Fairfield Sentry would be ranked at 240 on an absolute return basis and come in number 10 if measured by risk-adjusted return as defined by its Sharpe ratio.  
  
What is striking to most observers is not so much the annual returns—which, though considered somewhat high for the strategy, could be attributed to the firm’s market making and trade execution capabilities—but the ability to provide such smooth returns with so little volatility. The best known entity using a similar strategy, a publicly traded mutual fund dating from 1978 called Gateway, has experienced far greater volatility and lower returns during the same period. The capital overseen by Madoff through Fairfield Sentry has a cumulative compound net return of 397.5%. Compared with the 41 funds in the Zurich database that reported for the same historical period, from July 1989 to February 2001, it would rank as the best performing fund for the period on a risk-adjusted basis, with a Sharpe ratio of 3.4 and a standard deviation of 3.0%. (Ranked strictly by standard deviation, the Fairfield Sentry funds would come in at number three, behind two other market neutral funds.)  
  
Questions abound  
  
Bernard Madoff, the principal and founder of the firm who is widely known as Bernie, is quick to note that one reason so few might recognize Madoff Securities as a hedge fund manager is because the firm makes no claim to being one.  
  
The acknowledged Madoff feeder funds—New York-based Fairfield Sentry and Tremont Advisors’ Broad Market; Kingate, operated by FIM of London; and Swiss-based Thema—derive all the incentive fees generated by the program’s returns (there are no management fees), provide all the administration and marketing for them, raise the capital and deal with investors, says Madoff. Madoff Securities’ role, he says, is to provide the investment strategy and execute the trades, for which it generates commission revenue. [Madoff Securities also manages money in the program allocated by an unknown number of endowments, wealthy individuals and family offices. While Bernie Madoff refuses to reveal total assets under management, he does not dispute that the figure is in the range of $6 billion to $7 billion.]  
  
Madoff compares the firm’s role to a private managed account at a broker-dealer, with the broker-dealer providing investment ideas or strategies and executing the trades and making money off the account by charging commission on each trade. Skeptics who express a mixture of amazement, fascination and curiosity about the program wonder, first, about the relative complete lack of volatility in the reported monthly returns.  
  
But among other things, they also marvel at the seemingly astonishing ability to time the market and move to cash in the underlying securities before market conditions turn negative; and the related ability to buy and sell the underlying stocks without noticeably affecting the market. In addition, experts ask why no one has been able to duplicate similar returns using the strategy and why other firms on Wall Street haven’t become aware of the fund and its strategy and traded against it, as has happened so often in other cases; why Madoff Securities is willing to earn commissions off the trades but not set up a separate asset management division to offer hedge funds directly to investors and keep all the incentive fees for itself, or conversely, why it doesn’t borrow the money from creditors, who are generally willing to provide leverage to a fully hedged portfolio of up to seven to one against capital at an interest rate of Libor-plus, and manage the funds on a proprietary basis. These same skeptics speculate that at least part of the returns must come from other activities related to Madoff’s market making. They suggest, for example, that the bid-ask spreads earned through those activities may at times be used to “subsidize” the funds.  
  
According to this view, the benefit to Madoff Securities is that the capital provided by the funds could be used by the firm as “pseudo equity,” allowing it either to use a great deal of leverage without taking on debt, or simply to conduct far more market making by purchasing additional order flow than it would otherwise be able to do. And even among the four or five professionals who express both an understanding of the strategy and have little trouble accepting the reported returns it has generated, a majority still expresses the belief that, if nothing else, Madoff must be using other stocks and options rather than only those in the S&P 100.  
  
Bernie Madoff is willing to answer each of those inquiries, even if he refuses to provide details about the trading strategy he considers proprietary information. And in a face-to-face interview and several telephone interviews, Madoff sounds and appears genuinely amused by the interest and attention aimed at an asset management strategy designed to generate conservative, low risk returns that he notes are nowhere near the top results of well-known fund managers on an absolute return basis.  
  
Lack of volatility illusory  
  
The apparent lack of volatility in the performance of the fund, Madoff says, is an illusion based on a review of the monthly and annual returns. On an intraday, intraweek and intramonth basis, he says, “the volatility is all over the place,” with the fund down by as much as 1%. But as whole, the split-strike conversion strategy is designed to work best in bull markets and, Madoff points out, until recently “we’ve really been in a bull market since ‘82, so this has been a good period to do this kind of stuff.”  
  
Market volatility, moreover, is the strategy’s friend, says Madoff, as one of the fundamental ideas is to exercise the calls when the market spikes, which with the right stock picks would add to the performance. In the current bearish environment, when some market experts think the fund should have been showing negative returns, albeit at levels below the benchmark index, managing the strategy has become more difficult, says Madoff, although performance has remained positive or, as in February, flat. The worst market to operate in using the strategy, he adds, would be a protracted bear market or “a flat, dull market.” In a stock market environment similar to what was experienced in the 1970s, for instance, the strategy would be lucky to return “T-bill like returns.”  
  
Market timing and stock picking are both important for the strategy to work, and to those who express astonishment at the firm’s ability in those areas, Madoff points to long experience, excellent technology that provides superb and low-cost execution capabilities, good proprietary stock and options pricing models, well-established infrastructure, market making ability and market intelligence derived from the massive amount of order flow it handles each day.  
  
The strategy and trading, he says, are done mostly by signals from a proprietary “black box” system that allows for human intervention to take into account the “gut feel” of the firm’s professionals. “I don’t want to get on an airplane without a pilot in the seat,” says Madoff. “I only trust the autopilot so much.” As for the specifics of how the firm manages risk and limits the market impact of moving so much capital in and out of positions, Madoff responds first by saying, “I’m not interested in educating the world on our strategy, and I won’t get into the nuances of how we manage risk.” He reiterates the undisputed strengths and advantages the firm’s operations provide that make it possible.  
  
Multiple stock baskets  
  
Avoiding market impact by trading the underlying securities, he says, is one of the strategy’s primary goals. This is done by creating a variety of stock baskets, sometimes as many as a dozen, with different weightings that allow positions to be taken or unwound slowly over a one- or two-week period. Madoff says the baskets comprise the most highly capitalized liquid securities in the market, making the entry and exit strategies easier to manage. He also stresses that the assets used for the strategy are often invested in Treasury securities as the firm waits for specific market opportunities. He won’t reveal how much capital is required to be deployed at any given time to maintain the strategy’s return characteristics, but does say that “the goal is to be 100% invested.”  
  
The inability of other firms to duplicate his firm’s success with the strategy, says Madoff, is attributable, again, to its highly regarded operational infrastructure. He notes that one could make the same observation about many businesses, including market making firms. Many major Wall Street broker-dealers, he observes, previously attempted to replicate established market making operations but gave up trying when they realized how difficult it was to do so successfully, opting instead to acquire them for hefty sums. [Indeed, says Madoff, the firm itself has received numerous buyout offers but has so far refused any entreaties because he and the many members of his immediate and extended family who work there continue to enjoy what they do and the independence it allows and have no desire to work for someone else.]  
  
Similarly, he adds, another firm could duplicate the strategy in an attempt to get similar results, but its returns would likely be unmatched because “you need the physical plant and a large operation” to do it with equal success. However, many Wall Street firms, he says, do use the strategy in their proprietary trading activities, but they don’t devote more capital to such operations because their return on capital is better used in other operations. Setting up a proprietary trading operation strictly for the strategy, or a separate asset management division in order to collect the incentive fees, says Madoff, would conflict with his firm’s primary business of market making.  
  
Commissions suffice  
  
“We’re perfectly happy making the commissions” by trading for the funds, he says, which industry observers note also gives the firm the entirely legitimate opportunity to “piggyback” with proprietary trading that is given an advantage by knowing when and where orders are being placed. Setting up a division to offer funds directly, says Madoff, is not an attractive proposition simply because he and the firm have no desire to get involved in the administration and marketing required for the effort, nor to deal with investors.  
  
Many parts of the firm’s operations could be similarly leveraged, he notes, but the firm generally believes in concentrating on its core strengths and not overextending itself. Overseeing the capital provided by the funds and its managed accounts, he says, provides another fairly stable stream of revenue that offers some degree of operational diversification.  
  
Madoff readily dismisses speculation concerning the use of the capital as “pseudo equity” to support the firm’s market making activities or provide leverage. He says the firm uses no leverage, and has more than enough capital to support its operations.  
  
He notes that Madoff Securities has virtually no debt and at any given time no more than a few hundred million dollars of inventory. Since the firm makes markets in only the most highly capitalized, liquid stocks generally represented by the S&P 500 index, a majority of which are listed on the NYSE, as well as the 200 most highly capitalized NASDAQ-listed stocks, says Madoff, it has almost no inventory risk.  
  
Finally, Madoff calls ridiculous the conjecture that the firm at times provides subsidies generated by its market making activities to smooth out the returns of the funds in a symbiotic relationship related to its use of the capital as a debt or equity substitute. He agrees that the firm could easily borrow the money itself at a fairly low interest rate if it were needed, and would therefore have no reason to share its profits. “Why would we do that?”  
  
Still, when the many expert skeptics were asked by _MAR/Hedge_ to respond to the explanations about the funds, the strategy and the consistently low volatility returns, most continued to express bewilderment and indicated they were still grappling to understand how such results have been achieved for so long. Madoff, who believes that he deserves “some credibility as a trader for 40 years,” says: “The strategy is the strategy and the returns are the returns.” He suggests that those who believe there is something more to it and are seeking an answer beyond that are wasting their time.

* * *

“Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” by Erin E. Arvedlund, _Barron’s_ , May 7, 2001 **  
  
**_Bernie Madoff is so secretive, he even asks his investors to keep mum_  
  
Two years ago, at a hedge-fund conference in New York, attendees were asked to name some of their favorite and most-respected hedge-fund managers. Neither George Soros nor Julian Robertson merited a single mention. But one manager received lavish praise: Bernard Madoff.  
  
Folks on Wall Street know Bernie Madoff well. His brokerage firm, Madoff Securities, helped kick-start the NASDAQ Stock Market in the early 1970s and is now one of the top three market makers in NASDAQ stocks. Madoff Securities is also the third-largest firm matching buyers and sellers of New York Stock Exchange-listed securities. Charles Schwab, Fidelity Investments and a slew of discount brokerages all send trades through Madoff.  
  
But what few on the Street know is that Bernie Madoff also manages more than $6 billion for wealthy individuals. That's enough to rank Madoff’s operation among the world's five largest hedge funds, according to a May 2001 report in _MARHedge,_ a trade publication.  
  
What's more, these private accounts, have produced compound average annual returns of 15% for more than a decade. Remarkably, some of the larger, billion-dollar Madoff-run funds have never had a down year.  
  
When _Barron's_ asked Madoff how he accomplishes this, he says. “lt's a proprietary strategy. I can't go into it in great detail.”  
  
Nor were the firms that market Madoff’s funds forthcoming. “lt's a private fund. And so our inclination has been not to discuss its returns,” says Jeffrey Tucker, partner and co-founder of Fairfield Greenwich, a New York City-based hedge-fund marketer. “Why _Barron's_ would have any interest in this fund I don't know.” One of Fairfield Greenwich's most sought-after funds is Fairfield Sentry Limited. Managed by Bernie Madoff, Fairfield Sentry has assets of $3.3 billion.  
  
One of Madoff’s hedge-fund offering memorandums describes his strategy this way: “Typically, a position will consist of the ownership of 30-35 S&P 100 stocks, most correlated to that index, the sale of out-of-the-money calls on the index and the purchase of out-of-the-money puts on the index. The sale of the calls is designed to increase the rate of return, while allowing upward movement of the stock portfolio to the strike price of the calls. The puts, funded in large part by the sale of the calls, limit the portfolio's downside.”  
  
Among options traders, that's known as the “split-strike conversion” strategy. In layman's terms, it means Madoff invests primarily in the largest stocks in the S&P 100 index - names like General Electric, Intel and Coca-Cola. At the same time, he buys and sells options against those stocks. For example, Madoff might purchase shares of GE and sell a call option on a comparable number of shares - that is, an option to buy the shares at a fixed price at a future date. At the same time, he would buy a put option on the stock, which gives him the right to sell shares at a fixed price at a future date.  
  
The strategy, in effect, creates a boundary on a stock, limiting its upside while at the same time protecting against a sharp decline in the share price. When done correctly, this so-called market-neutral strategy produces positive returns no matter which way the market goes.  
  
Using this split-strike conversion strategy, the Fairfield Sentry Limited fund has had only four down months since inception in 1989. In 1990, Fairfield Sentry was up 27%. In the ensuing decade, it returned no less than 11% in any year, and sometimes as high as 18%. Last year, Fairfield Sentry returned 11.55% and so far in 2001, the fund is up 3.52%.  
  
Those returns have been so consistent that some on the Street have begun speculating that Madoff’s market making operation subsidizes and smooths his hedge-fund returns.  
  
Why would Madoff Securities do this? Because, in having access to such a huge capital base, it can make much larger bets - with very little risk - than it could otherwise. It works like this: Madoff Securities stands in the middle of a tremendous river of orders, which means that its traders have advance knowledge, if only by a few seconds, of what the big customers in the market are buying and selling. And by hopping on the bandwagon, the market maker effectively locks in profits. As such, throwing a little cash back to the hedge funds would be no big deal. And the funds' consistent returns, in tum, attract more capital.  
  
When _Barron's_ ran that scenario by Madoff, he dismissed it as “ridiculous.” Still, some on Wall Street remain skeptical about how Madoff achieves such stunning double-digit returns using options alone. Three option strategists for major investment banks told Barron's they couldn't understand how Madoff churns out such numbers using this strategy. Adds a former Madoff investor: “Anybody who's a seasoned hedge fund investor knows the split-strike conversion is not the whole story. To take it at face value is a bit naive.” Madoff dismisses such skepticism. “Whoever tried to reverse-engineer [the strategy], he didn't do a good job. If he did, these numbers would not be unusual.”  
  
Adding further mystery to Madoff’s motives is the fact that he charges no fees for his money management services. Indeed, while fund marketers like Fairfield Greenwich rake off a 1.5% from investors, none of that goes back to Madoff. Nor does he charge a fee on money he manages in private accounts? Why not? “We're perfectly happy to just earn commissions on the trades,” he says.  
  
The lessons of Long-Term Capital Management's collapse are that investors need, or should want, transparency in their money manager's investment strategy. But Madoffs investors rave about his performance - even though they don't understand how he does it. “Even knowledgeable people can't really tell you what he's doing,” one very satisfied investor told _Barron's_. “People who have all the trade confirms and statements still can't define it very well. The only thing I know is that he's often in cash” when volatility levels get extreme. This investor declined to be quoted by name. Why? Because Madoff politely requests that his investors not reveal that he runs their money.  
  
“What Madoff told us was, 'If you invest with me, you must never tell anyone that you're invested with me. It's no one's business what goes on here,’” says an investment manager who took over a pool of assets that included an investment in a Madoff fund. “When he couldn't explain [to my satisfaction] how they were up or down in a particular month,” he added, "” pulled the money out.”  
  
For investors who aren't put off by such secrecy, there are a few ways to get into Madoff funds. Fairfield and Kingate Management both market funds that are managed by Madoff. Tremont Advisers, a publicly traded hedge-fund advisory firm offers Madoff-managed funds.

* * *

"WWF Entertainment and NBC to Discontinue XFL," BusinessWire, May 10, 2001

Stamford, CT- World Wrestling Federation Entertainment, Inc. (NYSE:WWF) in conjunction with its joint venture partner, NBC, today announced that it will discontinue its professional football league, the XFL. The decision was made after determining that the additional investment required to further develop the XFL was not commensurate with the potential return and the risk inherent in pursuing the venture.

"While we believe that it is an extraordinary accomplishment to have created a new professional football league in what amounts to less than a year's time, we feel that it is in the best interests of our shareholders and our partners to discontinue the XFL," said Vince McMahon, WWF Chairman. "I would personally like to thank the employees of the XFL and the WWF, the XFL fans, our partner NBC and especially Dick Ebersol and his team for their perseverance, support and enthusiasm that did not waiver throughout the season. We are all proud of the creative innovations that we introduced in the production of the game as well as in the rule changes that were implemented to increase the excitement and enjoyment of the game and provide a fan-friendly brand of football."

Dick Ebersol, Chairman, NBC Sports and Olympics, commented, "Launching a new football league in such a short period of time was a daunting and exciting challenge, but we gave it our best shot in what clearly is a difficult and challenging sports marketplace. I especially want to salute our partners at the WWF, the fans, players and coaches who created a fun and entertaining XFL in-stadium experience."

WWFE will report the operations and related costs of discontinuance of the XFL as discontinued operations in its fourth quarter results for the period ended April 30, 2001. The company anticipates that its share of the after-tax cash losses will be approximately $35 million.

* * *

"Exploitation Records Hits The Ground Running," _Billboard_ , June 2, 2001

Exploitation Records, the record label arm of Kurt Cobain and Charlize Theron's newly established production company Springbok Productions, has celebrated its move from vanity label under Nirvana's five-album deal with Atlantic Records to the music industry's new wunderkind, by going on a signing spree. Besides being Nirvana's label, it has already signed the likes of its grunge peers Soundgarden and Alice in Chains (as well as Layne Staley's side project Mad Season), and artists like Stone Temple Pilots, Rush (said to be recording their first album since _Test for Echo_ five years previously), Hootie & the Blowfish, Boston, Kansas, Skid Row, Jackson Browne, Meat Loaf, Billy Ray Cyrus, Dolly Parton, Method Man, Nas and Ice-T. In addition, already in accordance with Cobain's wishes, it has already been recording albums of "street bums" and "deformed people", only making 500 copies each of these particular albums, only available in their hometowns. "I think we're about to really take off like never before," Cobain tells the press.

To make some of these signings, Exploitation Records had to pay to buy out some artists' remainder of their contracts with current labels, such as Rush and Stone Temple Pilots from their deals with Nirvana's former label Atlantic.

* * *

“Andersen wrong on audits: SEC”, CNN Money, June 19, 2001  
  
 _Arthur Andersen agrees to pay $7M to settle Waste Management case_  
  
The Securities and Exchange Commission said Tuesday that Arthur Andersen LLP's audits of Waste Management Inc.'s financial statements were false and misleading, and that the accounting firm agreed to pay $7 million to settle the case. The agency said it was the largest civil penalty ever assessed against a Big Five accounting firm.  
  
The SEC said it found financial statements that were issued as "clean" opinions by Andersen overstated Waste Management's pre-tax income by more than $1 billion for the years 1993 to 1996. Andersen neither admitted nor denied wrongdoing.  
  
"Arthur Andersen and its partners failed to stand up to company management and thereby betrayed their ultimate allegiance to Waste Management's shareholders and the investing public," said Richard H. Walker, SEC's Director of Enforcement, in a statement. "Given the positions held by these partners and the duration and gravity of the misconduct, the firm itself must be held responsible for the false and misleading audit reports issued in its name."  
  
"The settlement allows the firm and its partners to close a very difficult chapter and move on," said Terry E. Hatchett, Andersen North America Managing Partner, in a statement. "We made a business decision to put the matter and the uncertainty of litigation behind us."  
  
"The allegations underlying the settlement are limited to one client and reflect work that is in some cases more than seven years old," Hatchett said.  
  
Three Andersen partners, without admitting or denying wrongdoing, agreed to an anti-fraud injunction, settled allegations of federal securities law and antifraud provision violations. They agreed to an anti-fraud injunction, a civil penalty and a bar from appearing or practicing in front of the SEC as an accountant, with the possibility of reinstatement.  
  
A fourth partner, with no admission or denial, settled administrative proceedings regarding improper professional conduct and agreed to a bar with the possibility of reinstatement.  
  
The existence of a probe into Arthur Andersen's handling of Waste Management's financial statements came to light in April 1998, when the Houston-based trash hauler, fresh from adopting more conservative accounting practices that increased truck-depreciation and other income-statement expenses, revealed the inquiry in an SEC filing.

* * *

"Q&A: Michael Eisner," _Newsweek_ , June 20, 2001

Q: All elements of the company are doing so well, even elements that were initially struggling, like Disneyland Paris, ABC, and whatnot. Why has that been?  
A: Well, after Frank Wells died, I admit that was I was lost for a bit. I did try to take on far too much to compensate. Thank God for Bob Iger and John Lasseter, they really helped pull us out of a rut. And me...I didn't think I'd really recover after losing the chance for Disney's America, but I've come back, better than ever. They also made me realize that a lot of the ideas I had wouldn't have worked. I'd been gung-ho for a second gate at Disneyland Paris to open by 1999, a replica of MGM Studios, but they made it clear that it would've jeopardized Disneyland Paris' newfound profits thanks to Discoveryland's Space Mountain. We will still build it, of course, but when we can actually afford to do it. Our original Anaheim second gate was to have been called California Adventure, but then they helped me realize that would've been redundant and opened up more Euro Disney mockery. So, I guess I have been humbled somewhat. But not to where I don't have ideas. In fact, we plan in the next decade to expand into Shanghai and Hong Kong. We truly will now launch Mickey's Millennium!  
Q: Disney just announced that Miramax will be repurchased and folded into Touchstone. How aware was Disney about the stories concerning Harvey Weinstein?  
A: I never had a close relationship with Bob or Harvey, so I wouldn't be in any position to judge if I heard rumors about him, or think anything of him being other than a great eye for talent. But you do have to admit, detestable as Harvey is, Miramax made many classic films. That's a body of work that can't simply be ignored and shunted off.  
Q: What are your thoughts about Kurt Cobain, Charlize Theron and Springbok Productions?  
A: We are honored to have a chance to work with them. In fact, Touchstone will be the distributor of the next projects of Quentin Tarantino and Kevin Smith, which Springbok is producing. And there's bound to be room for Springbok TV projects on ABC. Maybe, if we'd known what they were going to do, we would've asked for more money regarding the Nirvana documentary's broadcast. (chuckles)  
Q: What's gonna happen when Mickey enters the public domain, which will happen quite a bit sooner since the DMCA did not end up the way you wanted, and was enacted without the Copyright Term Protection Act?  
A: (long pause) I just hope that people will at least recognize what Mickey is meant to be and react accordingly.

* * *

"AT&T Splits Off AT&T Wireless", BusinessWire, July 9, 2001 **  
  
**NEW YORK – Marking the final milestone in its split off of AT &T Wireless, AT&T today began converting all AT&T Wireless tracking stock into AT&T Wireless common shares and distributing 1,136,258,587 shares of AT&T Wireless common stock, currently held by AT&T, to AT&T common stockowners. As a result of the redemption and distribution, AT&T Wireless today will become a separate, independent company.  
  
As previously announced, the distribution is on the basis of .3218 of a share of AT&T Wireless for each AT&T share outstanding. The redemption of AT&T Wireless tracking stock and conversion to AT&T Wireless common stock is on a one-for-one basis.  
  
AT&T common shareowners will receive whole shares of AT&T Wireless and cash payments for fractional shares. As previously announced, AT&T received a ruling from the Internal Revenue Service that the stock dividend to U.S. shareowners and the redemption of the tracking stock qualifies as tax-free for federal income tax purposes, with the exception of cash received for fractional shares.  
  
"Today is a great day for AT&T, AT&T Wireless and our shareowners," said AT&T Chairman and CEO C. Michael Armstrong. "After investing more than $15 billion in key acquisitions, and network expansion and improvement, we've taken a local analog cellular operation and built a national digital wireless network with more than 15 million customers. Thanks to those investments and the hard work of more than 29,000 employees, AT&T Wireless last year grew its customer base by 58 percent and its revenue by nearly 40 percent. I know AT&T Wireless has what it takes to capitalize on its many opportunities and succeed as an independent company."  
  
Under its restructuring plan, AT&T is creating a family of four publicly-traded businesses, the first of which is AT&T Wireless. Each will operate under the “AT&T” brand and commit to uniform standards of quality. Each is a leader in its industry. AT&T Wireless is one of the fastest-growing wireless providers in the United States. AT&T Broadband is the largest cable TV and broadband services provider. AT&T Business is the leading enterprise communications and networking provider. AT&T Consumer is a leading consumer communications provider.  
  
AT&T said its restructuring plan remains on track. The plan is designed to give greater visibility to the market value of each of AT&T’s individual businesses, allow them to be more responsive to their specific markets, and move more quickly to seize growth opportunities. When the restructuring plan is completed, AT&T shareowners will receive shares designed to represent each of the businesses. Going forward, the company noted that investors would be able to select the securities that best suit their investment needs.  
  
AT&T also noted the company will adjust its financial reporting to reflect the split off of AT&T Wireless. Effective with second-quarter earnings, AT&T will report AT&T Wireless results as “discontinued operations,” in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles. As a result, AT&T Wireless revenue and expenses will not be included in the total revenue and expense lines of the company’s income statement, and AT&T Wireless net results will be excluded from AT&T’s earnings from continuing operations. At the same time, AT&T Wireless assets and liabilities will be excluded from the assets and liabilities lines of the company’s balance sheet, but will be included in net assets from discontinued operations. AT&T said it will restate prior financial results to conform to the new method of presentation after it files second quarter results with the SEC.

* * *

"News Corp. and Haim Saban Reach Agreement to Sell Fox Family Worldwide to Disney for $5.3 Billion", BusinessWire, July 23, 2001 **  
  
**LOS ANGELES - News Corporation (NYSE: NWS, NWS/A; ASX: NCP, NCPDP) and Haim Saban, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Fox Family Worldwide Inc., announced today that they have reached a definitive agreement to sell Fox Family Worldwide to Walt Disney Co. (NYSE: DIS) in a cash transaction valued at approximately $5.3 billion, including the assumption of approximately $2.3 billion in debt. News Corp., through its majority-owned subsidiary Fox Entertainment Group (NYSE: FOX), and Haim Saban each own 49.5% of Fox Family Worldwide; Allen & Company Inc. owns the remaining 1%.  
  
As part of the transaction, Disney will acquire the Fox Family Channel, a fully distributed cable channel reaching 81 million U.S. homes; Saban Entertainment Inc., a production, distribution and merchandising company with one of the world's largest libraries of children's programs at over 6500 half hours; a 76% interest in Fox Kids Europe (Amsterdam Exchange: FKE), which has dedicated cable and satellite channels reaching 25 million subscribers in 54 countries and 15 languages; and Fox Kids Latin America, the second most widely distributed satellite/cable network in the region.  
  
Excluded from the transaction is the Fox Kids Network, a leading children's broadcast television network in the U.S. News Corp. will separately acquire Haim Saban's interest in this asset. Terms were not disclosed.  
  
Rupert Murdoch, Chairman and Chief Executive of News Corporation said: "Together with Haim, we have established Fox Family as one of the world's premier family entertainment groups. We've enjoyed a close and profitable relationship that has delivered quality programming to children and families around the world. Disney has purchased a first-class collection of assets and I wish them great success."  
  
Saban said: "Working in a highly productive partnership with News Corp. and Fox Broadcasting over the last six years, we have realized our original goal of building Fox Family Worldwide into one of the world's leading fully integrated family and children's entertainment companies. The talented management team and employees of Fox Family have done a tremendous job in building this company into a powerful global franchise. I have the utmost confidence that going forward, Disney will build on this solid foundation to allow millions of viewers throughout the world to continue to enjoy quality family entertainment while enabling the employees of Fox Family to benefit from new opportunities as part of Disney."  
  
The transaction, which is expected to close in the 2001 calendar fourth quarter, is subject to customary closing conditions. Bear Stearns acted as financial advisor to News Corp. and Squadron Ellenoff Plesent & Sheinfeld LLP provided legal advice. Morgan Stanley and Alpine Capital acted as financial advisors to Haim Saban and O'Melveny & Myers and Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld, L.L.P. provided legal advice.  
  
Fox Family Worldwide, Inc. is a fully integrated global family entertainment company which develops, acquires, produces, broadcasts and distributes quality live-action and animated television series, specials and motion pictures. Its principal businesses include Fox Family Channel, one of America's first and most widely distributed basic cable networks, reaching more than 81 million households; Fox Kids Network, one of the top children's broadcast television programming services in the United States, airing to 98 percent of TV households on affiliates of the Fox Broadcasting Company; Saban Entertainment, whose library of over 6500 half-hours of programming and hundreds of hours of movies is among the largest in the world; and Fox Kids International, with dedicated cable and satellite channels reaching over 51 countries including the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland, Brazil, France, Holland, Australia, Colombia, Argentina, Peru, Poland and Scandinavia.  
  
Fox Entertainment Group, Inc., 83% owned by The News Corporation Limited (NYSE: NWS), is principally engaged in the development, production and worldwide distribution of feature films and television programs, television broadcasting and cable network programming. Fox has total assets as of March 31, 2001 of approximately US$18.0 billion and total annual revenues of approximately US$9 billion. The Company's studios, production facilities and film and television library provide high-quality creative content, and the Company's broadcasting and cable networks provide extensive distribution platforms for the Company's programs.  
  
The News Corporation Limited (NYSE: NWS, NWS.A; ASX: NCP, NCPDP; LSE: NEWCP) is one of the world's largest media companies with total assets as of March 31, 2001 of approximately US$39 billion and total annual revenues of approximately US$14 billion. News Corporation's diversified global operations in the United States, Canada, continental Europe, the United Kingdom, Australia, Latin America and the Pacific Basin include the production and distribution of motion pictures and television programming; television, satellite and cable broadcasting; the publication of newspapers, magazines and books; the production and distribution of promotional and advertising products and services; the development of digital broadcasting; the development of conditional access and subscriber management systems; and the creation and distribution of popular on-line programming.

* * *

“Leasing of Trade Center May Help Transit Projects, Pataki Says,” by Ronald Smothers, _The New York Times_ , July 25, 2001

Governor George E. Pataki, speaking yesterday at the closing of the $3.2 billion deal to lease the World Trade Center, said the money from the deal could help finance the long-stalled Second Avenue subway and plans to provide tunnel access for Long Island Rail Road trains to Grand Central Terminal. 

The governor said that financing such transportation projects with proceeds from the 99-year net lease would bring the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey out of the real estate business and back to its main mission of developing and maintaining regional transportation facilities. The Port Authority opened the trade center 30 years ago. 

''When I came into office in 1995, the Port Authority had hotels, shopping malls, industrial parks and we asked why,'' Governor Pataki said. ''We have worked hard to put those developments in the hands of the private sector experts who pay taxes. And today the Port Authority returns to the core mission of dealing with transportation.'' 

Aides to the governor and others said that the possibility of using the funds for mass transit had emerged in discussions in recent weeks, as the Pataki administration sought an alternative to the unsuccessful efforts to get federal aid for the two projects. In addition, the two projects were dealt a blow by the defeat last year of the state transportation bond issue, which would have allowed the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to borrow money for the projects. 

Mr. Pataki disappointed many mass transit advocates and MTA board members earlier this year when his proposed budget failed to make up for the loss of financing and instead directed the agency to come up with the $320 million it needed to keep their five-year capital plan on track. If he follows through on his suggestion, New York's expected $50 million annual share of the trade center lease proceeds could help advance the two projects. 

The governor's comments came as he stood with Acting Governor Donald T. DiFrancesco of New Jersey on the sun-baked plaza of the trade center in a ceremony marking the transfer of the final installment of the $616 million down payment on the deal. Yesterday was also the beginning of a 90-day transition period in which control will move from the Port Authority to the partnership of Silverstein Properties and Westfield America. 

Touted as the largest real estate deal in the city's history, the transfer of the trade center to private operators comes at a time when the economy and by extension the real estate market is cooling significantly, said Bruce E. Surry, executive managing director at Insignia/ESG, the commercial real estate company. 

But while the transaction was happening at ''a difficult time in the market cycle,'' Mr. Surry said that the Silverstein and Westfield partnership was apparently able to get financing for the deal from bankers who were betting that the downturn would not be severe enough to affect the fortunes of such an iconic property as the World Trade Center. 

''The economy is a problem, but it's not a problem of the level of the one we had in 1991,'' Mr. Surry said, recalling the last recession, when occupancy at the World Trade Center dipped to 78 percent. 

Conspicuously absent from the ceremony was Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, whose administration has been at odds with the Port Authority over everything from the trade center lease to the operation of the city's airports. A spokesman for the mayor said that he did not know whether the mayor had been invited. 

Either way, the event was likely to intensify the tensions between City Hall and the bistate agency. The Giuliani administration contends that the 99-year lease is in effect a sale of the two towers, and therefore requires the ''buyer'' to pay the full real estate taxes on the buildings. The city has estimated that amount at $100 million a year; the Port Authority now makes a $26 million payment to the city in lieu of those taxes. 

Neil D. Levin, the executive director of the Port Authority, maintained that the agency still owned the buildings but stood ready to negotiate with the city on a ''fair'' payment in light of the new lease arrangement. The city has chosen not to negotiate with the agency and has instead in letters to Silverstein Properties and Westfield put the partnership on notice that they ''will be responsible for payment of the taxes in full.'' 

When asked yesterday about the ceremony at the trade center, Mr. Giuliani said: ''I know that they are going to try to privatize it, and the city should get the full amount of the property taxes on it. If we get the full amount of the property taxes, then it has actually been privatized.''

* * *

"AT&T Completes Split Off of Liberty Media", BusinessWire, August 10, 2001 **  
  
**NEW YORK - AT &T announced today that it has completed the split off of Liberty Media Corporation, which owns all of the assets attributed to the Liberty Media Group (NYSE: LMG.A, LMG.B). The split off was effective at 9:00 AM (ET). Liberty Media Corporation, which is now separate from AT&T, is an independent, publicly-traded company.  
  
Liberty Media Corporation’s Series A common stock and Series B common stock is listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbols “LMC.A” and “LMC.B,” respectively.  
  
As previously announced, the Internal Revenue Service has ruled that the redemption of the tracking stock and the split off qualify for tax-free treatment for federal income tax purposes.  
  
AT&T acquired Liberty Media through its acquisition of Tele-Communications, Inc. (TCI) in March 1999. AT&T said that the split off is intended to better enable Liberty Media to raise capital on its own and use its stock as currency in acquiring, merging or partnering with other companies and to help the public markets to better value the company. The action will also eliminate regulatory and competitive conflicts of interest between Liberty Media and AT&T.  
  
Investor Information About the Split Off  
  
AT&T’s Board of Directors voted to redeem each outstanding share of its Class A and Class B Liberty Media tracking stock for one share of Liberty Media Corporation’s Series A and Series B common stock, respectively.  
  
As part of the redemption, shares of Liberty Media Corporation’s common stock will be issued only to former holders of Liberty Media Group tracking stock in exchange for their shares of Liberty Media Group tracking stock.

* * *

"Enron's Chief Executive Quits After Only 6 Months in Job," by Richard A. Oppel, Jr. and Alex Berenson, _The New York Times,_ August 15, 2001 **  
  
**Jeffrey Skilling, the chief executive of the Enron Corporation, stunned Wall Street today by announcing that he would quit after just six months in the job, calling the move a ''purely personal decision.'' But the abruptness of the departure left many analysts questioning whether a series of setbacks the company has suffered played a part in the decision.  
  
Kenneth Lay, Enron's 59-year-old chairman, will step back into the position he left early this year after 15 years as chief executive. Mr. Lay, who originally recruited Mr. Skilling to Enron, said tonight that he had agreed to stay on through the end of 2005 to ''make sure we've got plenty of time to work out an orderly succession.''  
  
Mr. Skilling, 47, had been at the heart of the transformation of Enron from an old-line natural gas pipeline company to the biggest and most aggressive of the new breed of unregulated energy traders that buy and sell billions of dollars of electricity and other commodities daily. That strategy helped Enron's stock price soar during the last decade. But this year the company's shares have fallen sharply, as Enron has suffered from problems with its new broadband telecommunications trading unit, its investment in a large power plant in India, and criticism from officials in California, who blame Enron and other energy companies for the collapse of the state's electricity market.  
  
A former energy consultant at McKinsey & Company who joined Enron in 1990, Mr. Skilling built its energy-trading operations into the company's most profitable unit, accounting for nearly $1.7 billion -- or 85 percent -- of operating income last year. He became president and chief operating officer in 1997, and in February of this year became chief executive.  
  
On a conference call, Mr. Skilling said he could not ''stress enough that this has nothing to do with Enron.'' He added that ''the reasons for leaving the business are personal, but I'd just as soon keep that private.'' Mr. Skilling, who is divorced, has joint custody of three teenage children -- a daughter, 17, and two sons, 14 and 11 -- with his ex-wife. Mr. Skilling, who will leave the board but will serve as a consultant to the company, will not receive any severance package because his departure is voluntary, Mr. Lay said.  
  
Since May 2000, Mr. Skilling has sold at least 450,000 Enron shares worth at least $33 million, according to Securities and Exchange Commission filings. He still owns about 1.1 million shares, the filings show. ''Absolutely no accounting issue,'' Mr. Lay told analysts, ''no trading issue, no reserve issue, no previously unknown problem issues'' are behind the departure. There will be ''no change in the performance or outlook of the company going forward,'' he added. He also said the company was on track to meet analysts' earnings expectations, which are about $1.80 a share this year and $2.15 next year.  
  
On the call, Mr. Skilling said that ''in general there have been a lot of issues'' that have buffeted the company this year, but he said that he believed Enron had already surmounted most of them. ''Now is the time'' to step down, he said, ''because I think we've got a lot of these things behind us.'' Nonetheless, the move jolted analysts, who, despite the stock's recent slide and the company's other problems, saw Mr. Skilling as the unquestioned leader to follow Mr. Lay.  
  
In after-hours trading, shares of Enron fell about 8 percent, to $39.55. That fall follows a plunge of almost 50 percent since January in the stock, which had closed in regular trading at $42.93, up 78 cents. The news of the executive changes came after the market closed.  
  
''I'm surprised and I'm stunned,'' said Philip K. Verleger, an energy economist with the Brattle Group, a consulting firm in Cambridge, Massachusetts. ''Skilling was the guy who executed the growth in the trading business.''  
  
Investors have become increasingly concerned that a surge in new power plant construction will lead to a glut of electricity within a few years and lower the value of Enron's role as a middleman between plant owners and electricity users. In addition, the company's efforts to enter the water business have fared poorly, and its broadband trading operation has become a cash drain.  
  
Mr. Skilling's promotion early this year came after several crucial Enron executives resigned. These included Rebecca Mark, who at one time was considered a rival for the top job. Ms. Mark became chief executive of the Azurix Corporation in 1999 after Enron spun off the company, its global water business. But its financial performance was disappointing, and Ms. Mark left the company last year. Enron later agreed to buy back Azurix stock for less than half what public shareholders had paid.

* * *

"Phantom Out of Hell: Meat Loaf and Michael Crawford to 'Dance' on Broadway" by Robert Hofler, _Variety_ , August 23, 2001 ****  
  
****Meat Loaf, the bombastic "Wagnerian rock" star known for the record-setting _Bat Out of Hell_ albums written by Jim Steinman, is officially set to walk the footlights of Broadway in the new musical _Dance of the Vampires_. More than twenty-five years after last working together on the film of _The Rocky Horror Picture Show_ , Tim Curry will be hired as standby for the lead role. Fourteen years after his bloodletting turn in _Phantom of the Opera_ , Michael Crawford will join Loaf/Curry in second billing in this new musical of the macabre. Based on Roman Polanski's 1967 movie spoof _The Fearless Vampire Killers_ , the show will begin an out-of-town tryout in Atlanta at the Alliance Theatre on March 17, and then will move the following September 2 to the Minskoff Theatre, where it will open October 24 after a long preview schedule of six weeks. It will go into rehearsals in January to prep for the Atlanta tryout.  
  
Mr. Loaf (with Mr. Curry on standby) will take on the role of Count von Krolock, a distinguished vampire who battles with a grad student from Heidelberg University over the body and soul of a young woman. Crawford will play the mentor of said grad student, Professor Abronsius, a "rather intensely wacky vampire hunter" who wants to capture Krolock. No other principals for the show have been announced, but David Sonenberg, one of the lead producers of the show, stated that casting on the show would be complete in about six weeks after further casting sessions this September.  
  
The musical had its world premiere four years ago as _Tanz der Vampire_ in Vienna. Polanski directed that stage version, as well as a later incarnation, which is still running in Stuttgart, Germany. Over the years, main producer Andrew Braunsberg, who is also producing the New York version along with Sonenberg, attempted but failed to bring the director back to the United States to stage the musical on Broadway. Polanski fled the United States in 1977 when faced with charges of statutory rape. Sonenberg said that those efforts to return Polanski to the States contributed greatly to the delay of the show's U.S. premiere. Braunsberg also produced Polanski's 1971 film version of _Macbeth_. The show first made a U.S. appearance as a script reading for investors and a workshop production for theater owners last spring at Chelsea Studios.  
  
John Caird ( _Jane Eyre_ ) and Steinman, who is the composer-lyricist for _Dance of the Vampires_ , will co-direct the New York production, marking the first time Mr. Loaf has worked with his longtime collaborator on stage since the early 1970s. The book is by original German librettist Michael Kunze, along with Steinman, Caird and David Ives ( _All In the Timing_ ). Ives is also currently at work with Steinman for Warner Bros. on a musical version of _Batman_. Original costume designer Sue Blane will join the production, and Dennis Callahan and Daniel Ezralow will share choreography duties for the show. Original set designer William Dudley is also expected to sign on. "It will play very much like the original in several respects," Sonenberg states, "but in other areas, it's a new version of the show, significantly changed with a view toward a New York audience."  
  
Braunsberg and Sonenberg, who is Steinman's manager, are making their Broadway debuts as producers with _Dance of the Vampires_. They are joined by quite a worthy group of fellow producers. Anita Waxman and Elizabeth Williams ( _The Music Man_ , _The Real Thing_ ), Kurt Cobain and Charlize Theron's production company Springbok Productions, Broadway house manager Leonard Soloway, legendary film and music promoter Jerry Weintraub (who is informally connected with Springbok), Barry and Fran Weissler of _Chicago_ fame, Bob Boyett ( _Sweet Smell of Success_ , _Topdog/Underdog_ ), Lawrence Horowitz ( _Electra, It Ain't Nothing But the Blues_ ), Barry Diller and Bill Haber's USA Ostar Theatricals (forthcoming revival of _Noises Off_ and Nora Ephron's planned first stage play), Roy Furman, Michael Gardner, Tom Hulett and his promotion company Concerts West, Irving Azoff (manager of artists like The Eagles (and the solo careers of Don Henley, Glenn Frey and Joe Walsh), REO Speedwagon, Dan Fogelberg, Lindsey Buckingham, Journey, Jennifer Lopez, Christina Aguilera, Sammy Hagar, and most recently Nirvana), Loaf's manager Allen Kovac and concert promoter Michael Cohl. The show has been capitalized at about $17.5 million.  
  
Representatives of Meat Loaf's management group, Left Bank Management, headed by Kovac, stated that the singer is committed to the show for one year in New York, along with plans to work concurrently with Steinman on a promised _Bat Out of Hell III_. Mr. Curry, since the _Rocky Horror_ days, has followed up his starring role of Frank-N-Furter with a massive variety of live action and animated film and television roles, as well as the occasional stage role in all that time, including _Amadeus_ and _My Favorite Year_. In addition, Mr. Loaf and Mr. Curry will donate a portion of their collective salary to go to a trust for the family of the late Steve Barton, who played Count von Krolock in Vienna, and who died suddenly last month. "Meat Loaf and Tim Curry are doing this on behalf of Steve's son, Edward, who has to grow up without his father." Mr. Loaf and Mr. Curry are not alone in donations. Springbok's proceeds of the show are being donated by two new charities created by its founders. Nevermind...We're Here To Help! was announced by Cobain in Europe earlier this summer, and has been created to help with survivors of tragedy, personal and well-known, especially in the aftermath of the controversy surrounding Michael and Debi Pearl. Theron, for her part, has formed the Charlize Theron Africa Outreach Project, to pay homage to her roots.  
  
Mort Viner, Crawford's longtime manager, dismissed any criticism that the actor was looking to repeat his _Phantom_ success with another macabre performance on Broadway. " _Vampires_ will be a totally difference performance because of the comedy,'' said Viner, who has represented Crawford since the actor's appearance in the movie version of _Hello, Dolly!_ in 1969. Crawford won a Tony Award for _The Phantom of the Opera_ in 1988. Viner said Crawford had seen _Tanz der Vampire_ in Vienna, and had been in discussions with Braunsberg and Sonenberg on the project for the past 18 months. According to Viner, Crawford has also committed to the show for one year in New York, as well having earned "first refusal" (the right to reprise his role) for any future productions.  
  
 _Dance of the Vampires_ is also scheduled for planned productions in London and Los Angeles, North American and European tours, revamped Vienna/Stuttgart productions, and expansion into Europe, Latin America, Australia and Japan. Springbok Productions' record label arm, Exploitation Records, will release the cast recording album and a star-studded "concept album" sometime in early 2003. Steinman initially had a preliminary deal with Interscope Records for these albums, but this was dealt with by having Interscope head Jimmy Iovine named as executive producer of the albums and included in the special thanks. Braunsberg and Sonenberg announce that the albums, the production, and all productions to come will be dedicated to the memory of Steve Barton and include such a postscript in all relevant materials.

* * *

"MARKET WATCH-A Self-Inflicted Wound Aggravates Angst Over Enron," by Alex Berenson, _The New York Times,_ September 9, 2001 ****  
  
****Something is rotten with the state of Enron.  
  
Or so Wall Street suspects. On January 1, shares in Enron, the giant energy trading company in Houston, stood at $83.13. On Friday, Enron closed at $31.57, down 9.7 percent for the week and 62 percent for the year. The slide has destroyed more than $38 billion in shareholder value.  
  
In part, the company's problems are beyond its control, a result of the collapse in natural gas prices this year and investor fears of a coming glut in electricity. But the deepest wound at Enron is self-inflicted. Heavy insider selling, indecipherable accounting practices and a stream of executive departures have combined to create a growing credibility gap between the company and Wall Street.  
  
''The stock is trading under a cloud,'' says James S. Chanos, the president of Kynikos Associates, a hedge fund in New York. Mr. Chanos began betting against Enron early this year and says he thinks that the company's shares remain overvalued.  
  
Enron's problems came to a head on August 14, when it announced that Jeffrey K. Skilling, the chief executive, had quit for personal reasons. With his resignation, Mr. Skilling joined a half-dozen other top Enron managers who have decided this year to pursue other opportunities. Still, the news came as a surprise because Mr. Skilling was named to his post only in February.  
  
Under the best of circumstances, the unexpected departure of a chief executive rattles Wall Street. But hard-headed investors can usually comfort themselves by toting up the sales and profits that the dearly departed pooh-bah has left behind. Executives come and go, but numbers are forever. Unfortunately, Enron's books offer investors little succor. The complexity of the company's businesses and the way it reports its results make understanding Enron's financial statements essentially impossible.  
  
Over the last decade, Enron has transformed itself from a simple natural gas pipeline company into the world's largest trader of electricity and gas. Last year, about three-quarters of the company's cash flow came out of the company's wholesale services division, which includes its trading operations. But Enron keeps to itself the details of the trades it makes. Are they short-term or long-term? Is the company hedged, or does it make ''directional bets'' on the prices of the commodities it trades? The answers are crucial, because they determine how much risk Enron has taken to make its money. Big profits are nice. Big profits that come from big, risky trades are a recipe for big, unexpected write-offs.  
  
Enron also makes a habit of selling assets and securities to closely related companies in ''related party'' transactions. The company says that the deals are comparable to those it makes with independent buyers and that they have been approved by its board and outside auditors. But related-party deals can provide a convenient way for public companies to shift losses to private affiliates. And Enron's disclosure about its related-party deals, including billions of dollars in asset swaps with a partnership that until recently was controlled by the company's chief financial officer Andrew Fastow, is notably sketchy.  
  
In the good old days, like last year, companies could get away with the unlikeliest of accounting gimmicks, as long as their revenue and profit numbers looked good. But Wall Street has become more demanding, as Enron is learning to its chagrin. Mark Palmer, a spokesman for Enron, says the company is aware of investors' concerns. ''We've got credibility issues on the street, no question,'' Mr. Palmer says. ''We're looking at a lot of ways to give our investors more information.''  
  
Sooner would be better than later.

* * *

"Rudy Can Fail," by Wayne Barrett, _The Village Voice_ , October 5, 2001

Outgoing New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani certainly wasn't intending this to be the way his final months in office would end. No one anticipated that the horrific terrorist attacks of Tuesday, September 11, would lead to the deaths of nearly 3000 people and the destruction of the World Trade Center in an ocean of glass, concrete and ash. He certainly was a calming presence in the aftermath, walking around the city, touring the wreckage, consoling the crowds, and visiting the heroic first responders that put their lives on the line to save others. But his reputation began to take on a different kind of glow during the raising of donations for various relief charities to assist in the recovery efforts, and Giuliani certainly moved to burnish his reputation. Much as he'd claimed during his tenure that he'd "made New York safe again", he now was casting himself as the person in command, who was calm despite the storm, preternaturally able to take the reins and coordinate the rescue and recovery efforts in a smooth and rapid manner. Talk-show host dynamo Oprah Winfrey particularly seemed eager to build the hype, referring to him as "America's mayor" during a memorial service held at Yankee Stadium on September 23. Giuliani has also sought to take advantage of how the mayoral primaries, which would've been held that day, were delayed two weeks, by trying to seek an emergency three-month extension of his term from January 1 to April 1.

But as the sense of unity that brought the brought the country together in grief and resolve has begun to slip away after 25 relatively unknown House Democrats voted against the Authorization to Use Military Force that gave the Bush administration the go-ahead to launch retaliatory strikes at Afghanistan for harboring Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda, and Democrats have been slowly taking up the mantle of challenging the President for not taking warnings from President Clinton about the threat bin Laden posed America before leaving office, while Republicans try to wave these concerns away by calling even posing these questions unpatriotic, so now does Giuliani find himself in similar crosshairs. Many people from the Port Authority, NYPD and FDNY have accused the mayor of setting up a system of emergency responses that was bound to fail and cost far more lives than there should've been, especially among the first responders. Battalion Chief Jim Riches, who lost his son that day, particularly has taken on the gauntlet. "Mayor Rudy's administration has always been one of intense failure for New York. What did you think Amadou Diallo's death was about? But this takes the cake. It wasn't enough for him to simply reassure us and maintain calm, but now he's trying to take the credit for our work! It's beyond disgusting." Former and current aides to Giuliani have also lashed out at their boss and the decisions he made prior to the attack as sealing many people's fate.

Former aide Jerome M. Hauer, who was also the first Director of Emergency Management in New York City, particularly decries Giuliani's decision to put the Office of Emergency Management at 7 World Trade Center, which also collapsed more than six hours after the Twin Towers had fallen. "For God's sake, why would you put the OEM in an area that was known to be a target for terrorist attacks for nearly a decade? After the first one (the truck bombing in an underground parking lot under the Twin Towers on February 26, 1993, also by al-Qaeda operatives), you would think you'd have to put the office somewhere far less visible, and certainly not within Manhattan. I recommended a location in Brooklyn, but the mayor simply was dead set on placing the office in Building 7." An NYPD memo from 1998 has been released, showing that they pointed out structural vulnerabilities, saying that its location on the 23rd floor, the building's public access, being located near a 1200-gallon diesel generator for emergency power and above a Con Ed substation that provided power to much of Lower Manhattan, all worked along with its potential as a terrorist target to recommend this location not be used. They stated it was particularly vulnerable to another truck bombing or a biological attack. They also said the fact that the Defense Department, CIA and Secret Service having offices there made it even more of a target, but Giuliani overrode them, saying this made it more safe, and that easy contact between these various services, being close together, was optimal.

Also of prime reason for their ire is the state of radio communications that day. During the 1993 attack, the situation took so long to resolve because of constant radio failures, and they were quite ineffective in getting the situation under control. A mayoral study in 1994 showed that the radios were faulty. Replacement digital radios were given through a $33 million no-bid contract with Motorola and were put into use earlier this year, but back in March, during a house fire in Queens, one failed, and a Probationary Firefighter's call for assistance could not be heard by those in his own company, but were picked up by units farther away. These radios were recalled, and it turned out that Fire Commissioner Tom Von Essen had not field-tested them prior to this day, a violation of the union contract cause. Furthermore, the NYPD, who'd upgraded already, had rejected the Motorola units, finding them unfit. Then-City Comptroller Alan Hevisi did an audit about the matter, which Giuliani slammed as a political attack, and rather than contract for new replacements, the FDNY were simply given back the old analog radios that had been found faulty. On September 11, they failed again, and firefighters could not hear orders to evacuate the site, and could not coordinate with the NYPD due to the radio mismatch. As a result, firefighters and police officers were still inside when the towers fell. "If Rudy had been remotely helpful, we would've had suitable digital radios that day and been able to evacuate easily. But he saddled us like this."

"This is an important message to take away. When we needed him most, Rudy failed New York. That's the honest truth." And so, Giuliani is likely to leave under a cloud of anger and hostility, a sense of injustice. The outgoing mayor will likely attack and try to play, like the GOP has done so far, that questioning him and his performance is unpatriotic. But it clearly has the chance to stick. Coupled with all the criticism of his crime policies as mayor, the unresolved bitterness at the murder of Amadou Diallo and the torture of Abner Louima, allegations of civil rights abuses and police brutality, and his calling for New York to privatize the school system, will leave a black mark on his record.

* * *

"Enron Reports $1 Billion In Charges And a Loss," by Kenneth N. Gilpin, _The New York Times,_ October 17, 2001 ****  
  
****The Enron Corporation, the nation's leading wholesale electricity marketer and natural gas trader, posted a third-quarter loss yesterday because of more than $1 billion in one-time charges for various businesses. The company reported a net loss of $618 million, or 84 cents a share, in contrast to net income of $292 million, or 34 cents a share, in the period a year earlier. Excluding charges, Enron said it earned $393 million, or 43 cents a share. Revenue jumped 59 percent, to $47.6 billion, from $30 billion a year ago.  
  
The charges, which total $1.01 billion, or $1.11 a share, included a $287 million write-down on Azurix, the company's troubled water-management division, and $180 billion in restructuring charges at its broadband telecommunications operation. But more than half the charges were related to various investment losses, mostly from Enron's stake in the New Power Company, a retail electricity joint venture with AOL Time Warner and IBM.  
  
''After a thorough review of our businesses, we have decided to take these charges to clear away issues that have clouded the performance and earnings potential of our core energy businesses,'' Kenneth L. Lay, Enron's chairman and chief executive, said in a statement.  
  
Even as its stock surged last year and into this year, analysts complained that the company had a complex web of businesses and lacked clarity in its financial reporting. In the wake of the California energy crisis, the value of Enron shares began a sharp retreat, and the focus on problems at some of its operations intensified.  
  
On August 14, Jeffrey K. Skilling abruptly resigned as president and chief executive after just six months on the job. The move forced Mr. Lay, who transformed the company from an intrastate pipeline company into an energy conglomerate, to resume operational control. Wall Street had been expecting write-offs, and analysts said more could be coming. But the news yesterday had little effect on Enron's shares, which rose 67 cents, to $33.84. They are off 59 percent this year.  
  
''They didn't telegraph exactly what they were going to do, or when or how,'' said David Fleischer, an analyst at Goldman Sachs. ''But for many quarters the topic has been how many billions are they going to write off? Now the question is, 'What's next?' ''  
  
Ronald Barone, an analyst at UBS Warburg, said the write-offs were ''a step in the right direction. Investors can look at this with more confidence that problems are being faced and addressed,'' he said. Mr. Barone and others said the company might have to make decisions at some point about troubled international assets, including its power plant in India as well as its broadband unit.  
  
Earlier this year, Mr. Skilling insisted that Enron's broadband trading business was worth $35 billion, even as a much-ballyhooed 20-year video on demand joint venture with Hollywood Video was terminated in March, with Enron blaming its partner and claiming they'd be in a better position without exclusivity. After the restructuring yesterday, Enron has a $600 million investment in broadband. ''I don't think anyone knows what the broadband operation is worth,'' said Todd Shipman, an analyst at Standard & Poor's. ''It seems to me they don't think there is a big prospect of a short-term turnaround. They are putting the whole thing in cold storage.''  
  
Despite Enron's potential, analysts said Mr. Lay faced a considerable task. ''Management has lost credibility and have to reprove themselves,'' Mr. Fleischer at Goldman Sachs said. ''They need to convince investors these earnings are real, that the company is for real and that growth will be realized. That has to be proven over time.'' The earnings report issued yesterday provides ''a little more breakdown,'' he added, ''but it will take more disclosure.''

* * *

"THE MARKETS-Where Did The Value Go At Enron?", by Floyd Norris, _The New York Times_ , October 23, 2001 ****  
  
****What really went on in some of the most opaque transactions with insiders ever seen? Wall Street has been puzzling over that since Enron released its quarterly earnings a week ago. Yesterday shares in Enron plunged $5.40, to $20.65, after the company said that the Securities and Exchange Commission was looking into the transactions.  
  
The reaction was in some ways puzzling. Given the questions that have been raised since the earnings announcement -- some of them prominently featured in _The Wall Street Journal_ \-- it was likely that the SEC would begin a preliminary inquiry.  
  
Whether it will go farther than that is not clear, but if nothing else the slide in Enron shares over the last week shows the hazards that can confront a company that allows word of a major reduction in its balance sheet value to dribble out. Enron's shares rose 67 cents, to $33.84, last Tuesday, as investors first reacted to the earnings announcement. But since then they have fallen $13.19, or 39 percent.  
  
The $1.2 billion reduction in shareholders' equity was not mentioned in a news release Enron issued on its quarterly earnings last Tuesday. It was briefly mentioned in a conference call with analysts, but many of the listeners seem to have not noticed that, wrongly thinking Kenneth L. Lay, Enron's chairman and chief executive, was referring to a $1 billion write-off that was disclosed in the earnings release.  
  
When questions were asked in the following days, the explanations were less than thorough. Enron explained that the reduction in shareholders' equity was related to the termination of ''structured finance vehicles'' involving partnerships that had been controlled by the company's chief financial officer.  
  
''Both the debt and the equity people are looking for more clarity about how the company goes about its business,'' said Ralph Pellecchia, a credit analyst at Fitch Investors Service. He added that the issue of the company's ''credibility related to this transaction really seems to have a life of its own.''  
  
Enron declined yesterday to allow any officials to be interviewed about its financial reports. But last night it said Mr. Lay would hold another conference call with investors at 9:30 AM today.  
  
The company's earlier disclosures regarding the partnerships baffled many analysts. They referred to such things as ''share settled costless collar arrangements'' and ''derivative instruments which eliminated the contingent nature of existing restricted forward contracts.'' The disclosures said the company entered into the transactions ''to hedge certain merchant investments and other assets.''  
  
It appears that Enron was able to report profits from them, even though the underlying assets included investments that declined in value. _The Wall Street Journal,_ citing reports the partnerships made to institutional investors, has reported the partnerships did well enough to make large cash distributions to their investors. Enron officials in recent days have refused to discuss the arrangements in any detail.  
  
One of the questions that the SEC may look into is whether the termination of those transactions should have been treated as a balance sheet item, or whether it should have been taken as a loss that affected reported earnings. An SEC spokesman declined to comment.  
  
Under accounting rules, a company's transactions in its own shares cannot produce profits or losses, whatever the effect on cash flow. So a company that sells its shares for $10 each, and buys them back at $50, or at $1, will report no earnings effect. Enron said that the reduction to shareholders equity, and a related reduction in notes receivable, ''is the result of Enron's termination of previously recorded contractual obligations to deliver Enron shares in future periods.''  
  
Stephen Moore, an analyst with Moody's Investors Service who has put Enron's debt on review for a possible downgrade, said that while some of the details were not clear, ''Essentially, Enron's promise was that a certain amount of Enron's shares would be worth $1 billion. The shares plummeted, and they were not'' worth that much.  
  
Enron emphasizes its own version of earnings, which leaves out some expenses, and directs attention away from its balance sheet, which is disclosed only in SEC filings, not in the earnings news release. The reduction in shareholders' equity would be shown only on the third-quarter balance sheet, which has yet to be released.  
  
Earlier this year, Jeffrey Skilling, then Enron's chief executive, reacted strongly when a questioner on a conference call challenged the failure to provide balance sheet numbers when earnings were released. He called the questioner a common vulgarity that surprised many listeners. Mr. Skilling later resigned for what he said were personal reasons and Mr. Lay, the chairman and former chief executive, took back the latter title.  
  
While Enron was riding high, its often difficult-to-understand reports were generally seen as not being a problem. The company appeared to be the dominant force in the business of energy trading, and to be able to produce phenomenal profits. When Mr. Lay was reported as having played an important role in formulating the Bush administration's energy policies, the aura was only enhanced. In January, the shares traded for $84.  
  
But now, with some of the company's ventures clearly having run into problems, it appears that investors are growing less willing to accept the company's reports. That the partnership transactions were disclosed at all was because of the involvement of the chief financial officer, and some have wondered if there might have been similar deals with others.  
  
Mr. Lay has promised to make the company's financial reports easier to understand, and last week's report was at first praised by some analysts for doing just that. In a news release yesterday, Mr. Lay said the company welcomed the SEC's request for information. ''We will cooperate fully with the SEC and look forward to the opportunity to put any concern about these transactions to rest,'' he said.

* * *

"Enron Taps All Its Credit Lines To Buy Back $3.3 Billion of Debt," by Floyd Norris, _The New York Times_ , October 27, 2001 ****  
  
****The Enron Corporation, trying to reassure investors that it has ample liquidity, began to repurchase all its outstanding commercial paper yesterday, using $3.3 billion it borrowed from banks by depleting its lines of credit. An Enron spokesman said that when the commercial paper repurchases are completed the company will retain more than $1 billion in cash.  
  
The moves did not appear to reassure investors, as Enron's share price fell to another six-year low. Shares traded as low as $15.04 yesterday, before ending the day at $15.40, down 95 cents. The move will raise the interest expense for the company, because banks normally charge more than companies have to pay in the commercial paper market, and because its outstanding debt will rise by the additional $1 billion.  
  
Enron's debt is rated investment grade. But its bonds now trade below investment grade levels, although not so low that it appears investors fear an early default. But with the bonds trading so low, it is unlikely Enron will be able to sell more commercial paper.  
  
Enron's stock has been plunging since October 17, shortly after it disclosed that its third-quarter balance sheet, which has yet to be released, will show a $1.2 billion reduction in shareholder equity as a result of complicated transactions involving partnerships formerly controlled by Andrew Fastow, who was the company's chief financial officer until he was replaced on Wednesday. The stock has lost more than half its value since the earnings announcement, and the company has disclosed that the Securities and Exchange Commission has asked questions about its accounting practices.

* * *

"Once-Mighty Enron Strains Under Scrutiny," by Alex Berenson and Richard A. Oppel, Jr., _The New York Times_ , October 28, 2001 ****  
  
****Is time running out for Enron?  
  
At the beginning of this year, the Enron Corporation, the world's dominant energy trader, appeared unstoppable. The company's decade-long effort to persuade lawmakers to deregulate electricity markets had succeeded from California to New York. Its ties to the Bush administration assured that its views would be heard in Washington. Its sales, profits and stock were soaring. And under the leadership of Jeffrey K. Skilling, its chief executive, Enron's arrogance had grown even more quickly.  
  
The company, based in Houston, dripped contempt for the regulators and consumer groups that stood between it and fully deregulated markets - for electricity, water and everything else. Everyone would win under deregulation, Enron said - especially its shareholders, whose stock would soar as the company profited from creating new markets. ''We are on the side of angels,'' Mr. Skilling said in March, dismissing those who saw the company as a profiteer in California's energy crisis. ''People want to have open, competitive markets. They want fair competition. It's the American way.''  
  
But less than a year later, everybody seems to have lost, especially Enron's investors. Enron's stock is plunging, and questions about its finances are mounting. Some experts in the energy industry worry that if the crisis at the company worsens, trading in natural gas and electricity could be seriously disrupted and energy prices could grow more volatile. In a worst-case outlook, Enron could become the 2001 version of Long-Term Capital Management, the huge hedge fund whose collapse roiled financial markets during the fall of 1998. Enron's shares have fallen more than 80 percent this year, erasing $50 billion in shareholder value.  
  
Enron closed on Friday at $15.40, down 95 cents, after hitting a 52-week low of $15.04 earlier in the day. The future of electricity deregulation is in doubt, thanks to blackouts and soaring power prices in California earlier this year - a crisis that ended only when that state contradicted deregulation's basic tenets by intervening deeply in the power market. Enron's efforts to become a profit-making water supplier and to create a new market in broadband communications capacity have been expensive failures. In August, Mr. Skilling quit, forcing Kenneth L. Lay, his predecessor as chief executive and still Enron's chairman, to resume day-to-day control of the company. The company declined to make senior executives, including Mr. Lay, available for comment, and asked that questions be submitted in writing. Mr. Skilling could not be reached.  
  
Enron's problems boiled over earlier this month, when it disclosed that its shareholders' equity, a measure of the company's value, dropped by $1.2 billion in the last quarter because of a deal disclosed only very hazily in Enron's regular financial statements. The Securities and Exchange Commission is looking into the company's financial reporting, and some investors question whether Enron has overstated profits at its primary business of trading electricity and natural gas.  
  
The slump in the company's shares accelerated after Enron revealed the fall in its shareholders' equity. On Wednesday, the company forced out its chief financial officer, Andrew S. Fastow, who is at the center of the controversy over Enron's confusing finances. The company, which six months ago seemed to be reaping billions of dollars from California's energy crisis, today faces a potential cash crunch.  
  
The surprise about shareholder equity inflamed investors' smoldering concern about Enron's opaque financial statements. Now, with Wall Street analysts and bond-rating agencies demanding more information about the complex transactions that have fueled the company's profits, Enron has been reduced to issuing news releases assuring investors that it has adequate access to cash.  
  
Enron does not appear to be in immediate danger of running out of cash. On Thursday, the company drew down a $3.3 billion credit line it had previously arranged with a group of banks led by Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase, which have each extended at least $400 million. But because of Enron's importance in the natural gas and electricity markets, industry experts say that any problem at the company could disrupt energy trading nationwide.  
  
The supply of natural gas and electricity would probably not be affected even if the company failed, because Enron is mainly a trader, rather than a producer, of energy. But a crisis at the company might increase the volatility of energy prices, which have swung wildly in the last year.  
  
Philip K. Verleger Jr., an energy-markets economist, emphasized that he thought Enron would survive this crisis. But he said it was not clear what would happen if Enron ran out of cash or if traders that use the company's EnronOnline Internet trading marketplace defaulted on their obligations. ''You suddenly have all these positions they have taken on there -- are they good? Are the firm's hedges good? What's the situation?'' Mr. Verleger said. ''It's got everyone scared.''  
  
In the short run, Enron's credit rating may be its biggest problem. If the company's rating falls below investment grade, Enron could be forced to issue tens of millions of shares of stock to cover loans that it has guaranteed. But creating new shares would make the shares that already exist less valuable, because those shares would no longer represent full ownership of the company. A drop in the company's credit rating could also prompt other energy traders and producers to back away from doing business with Enron, hurting the company's sales and profits.  
  
Enron's credit rating stands several notches above the critical point. But its bonds, which are publicly traded, have fallen so low that they are now offering interest rates of almost 10 percent, comparable with many junk bonds. Two of the three major credit-rating agencies, Moody's Investors Service and Fitch Investors Service, have put Enron's bonds on review for possible downgrades.  
  
''The issue that's in the front of everybody's mind right now is credit,'' said Mark Gurley, senior vice president and general manager for trading at Aquila Inc., one of the nation's largest energy traders. Aquila is based in Kansas City, Missouri. For now, Aquila and other major energy traders and producers, including Reliant Energy, the El Paso Corporation and Dynegy, are continuing to do business with Enron. And Mr. Gurley said that Enron's own trading in the electricity and natural gas markets did not suggest the sort of frenzied selling reminiscent of the collapse of Long-Term Capital Management in 1998. ''They haven't done anything trading-wise that gives me any indication they are closing their books down,'' he said.  
  
Still, some executives at other companies said they were looking more carefully at transactions with Enron, especially long-term contracts. They also said risk-management and credit officers were calling each other regularly to discuss the situation.  
  
Mark Palmer, an Enron spokesman, said on Friday that no energy-trading company had stopped doing business with Enron. He declined to say whether any of the company's trading partners had suspended or altered credit terms. He said the company was continuing to see normal volumes of business.  
  
But the crisis that Enron will face if its credit rating is downgraded is just a symptom of the bigger problem the company must confront. For years, the details of Enron's finances have been a mystery even to the Wall Street analysts whose job it is to follow the company, and to the investors who own its stock and bonds. When Enron's profits were soaring and it was creating lucrative new markets, shareholders did not seem to care about the impenetrability of its financial statements. Now they do. Yet the company seems incapable of offering straight answers to the questions investors ask.  
  
To others in the industry, the opaqueness of the company's financial statements parallels Enron's efforts to keep its energy-trading business lightly regulated and free of disclosure requirements. Though they do not expect Enron to crumble like Long-Term Capital Management, they say that, like the giant hedge fund, Enron uses a lot of debt, regulatory oversight is limited and outsiders have a difficult time figuring out its finances.  
  
The most pressing concerns are a series of partnerships and trusts Enron created to move some of its assets and debt off its balance sheet. With names like Marlin and Osprey, the partnerships have at least $3.3 billion in bonds outstanding, backed by assets like a stake in Azurix, Enron's water company subsidiary. Enron has promised that if the partnerships' debts exceed the value of their assets, Enron will issue enough new shares to make up the difference.  
  
Deals with partnerships formed by Mr. Fastow, who was chief financial officer when they were organized, led to the $1.2 billion write-off in shareholders' equity that Enron announced last week. The company has offered only skimpy details of its transactions with those partnerships.  
  
Enron ended its relationships with those partnerships in the last quarter, after being criticized by shareholders. In the process, it wrote off a promissory note that it had carried on its books, reducing its shareholders' equity by $1.2 billion. But, because of complex accounting rules, the transaction was not apparent in Enron's quarterly earnings report.  
  
The transaction disturbs investors because it suggests that Enron may have found a way to hide losses, throwing the accuracy of its financial statements into question. When Enron released third-quarter earnings on October 16, it reported a loss from $1 billion in write-offs on failed investments. The earnings statement did not mention the additional $1.2 billion equity writedown. But the company said its core business had been solidly profitable, and its shares rose.  
  
In a conference call with analysts after the announcement, Mr. Lay, Enron's chairman, also disclosed the reduction in shareholder equity. The reference was a brief one, however, and some listeners did not catch it. Those analysts were angered when they found out the next day what Enron had done, and many were confused by the accounting procedure. Enron's stock began to slide, and investors clamored for more information about the write-off. But so far, the company's efforts to clear up the situation have further unnerved investors.  
  
Mr. Lay has met with investors during the last two weeks to try to explain the deals, but some on Wall Street say they have come away with doubts about Mr. Lay's grasp of the situation. They say that the two people at Enron who appear to have been most knowledgeable about the deals - Mr. Skilling and Mr. Fastow - have both left the company. In an interview in late August, Mr. Lay said he did not know some details about the deals involving Mr. Fastow. In response to one question about them, he said, ''You're getting way over my head.''  
  
Mr. Palmer of Enron disputed any suggestion that Mr. Lay did not have a grasp of the investments at issue, saying Mr. Lay was handicapped in talking about them because of the SEC investigation. ''There is not a whole lot we can say, or should say, about them,'' Mr. Palmer said. He also said the company expected to generate about $3 billion in cash through asset sales by the end of next year.  
  
In a conference call on Tuesday, analysts pressed Mr. Lay and other top Enron executives to reveal more information about the LJM write-down and its other partnerships. Instead, they offered only vague explanations of the deal, leaving Wall Street worried that more write-offs might be coming.  
  
David Fleischer, a Goldman Sachs analyst and a longtime supporter of the company, was among those who came away concerned. ''If Enron is unable to clarify its off-balance-sheet transactions and restore confidence in the very near term by assuring investors that no more surprises are forthcoming that would affect the balance sheet or liquidity position, then the company will likely lose access to the capital markets,'' he wrote in a research note after the call.  
  
To try to reassure investors, Enron said late Thursday that EnronOnline, its Internet-based trading exchange, executed more than 8400 trades that day, a higher-than-normal volume. ''We know we have our work cut out for us if we are to rebuild our credibility with the investment community - and we're working on that,'' Mr. Lay said in a statement. ''But in the meantime, the best evidence of our strength is the willingness of customers to bring their business to Enron.''  
  
But those reassurances apparently are no longer enough for Wall Street. Enron's stock tumbled almost 6 percent Friday, to its lowest levels in six years.  
  
Now analysts are scrambling to figure out the extent of Enron's off-balance-sheet debt and to assess the risk that the company will have to issue new shares to make good on its partnership guarantees.  
  
Carol Coale, an analyst at Prudential Securities in Houston, calculates that Enron may have close to $9 billion in off-balance-sheet debt. She said that Enron had for two years been trying to sell about $6 billion in foreign assets - including properties in Latin America and a power plant in India embroiled in a dispute with the state government - and she worries about those prospects for sale in light of Enron's problems and the souring economy. ''As Enron is forced to sell assets to keep the ratings agencies off their backs, they may have to write those assets down,'' Ms. Coale said. On Wednesday, she downgraded her rating on Enron to ''sell'' from ''neutral.'' ''The bottom line is, it's really difficult to recommend an investment when management does not disclose the facts,'' Ms. Coale said.  
  
Short sellers, who attacked Enron's accounting even before the company disclosed the write-off, say the company's problems may run even deeper than analysts fear. Enron may have used the partnerships not just to finance money-losing investments but to hide losses in its core trading business, they say.  
  
''The company still isn't disclosing enough to know whether the core business, the trading business, is profitable,'' said Mark Roberts, director of research at Off Wall Street, which recommended shorting Enron's stock on May 7, when it stood at $59.43. ''The issue remains: why are they doing these transactions? Our theory has been that the core operations aren't that profitable.''  
  
James Chanos, a leading short seller who has bet that Enron's stock will fall, said, ''Is Enron booking gains when it has real profits, but hiding the losses when deals go against it?'' Mr. Palmer of Enron said the company stood by its reported energy-trading profits.  
  
Even traders at other energy companies say they do not have a clear picture of Enron's positions. Enron maintains that it is in no danger of being wiped out by a sharp move in electricity or gas prices because it keeps its trading book balanced -- meaning the energy it has agreed to sell is offset, in roughly equivalent amounts, by energy it has agreed to buy. ''With these guys, they tell us - and all you've got is their word - that they're hedged,'' said Mr. Verleger, the economist.  
  
In fact, Enron has lobbied forcefully over the years to limit regulation and disclosure of its trading operations. Last year, the company successfully lobbied Congress to effectively ensure that its Internet-trading platform would be exempted from regulation by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.  
  
Enron and other power traders do file limited information in reports to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the agency that oversees wholesale electricity and natural gas markets. But the commission does not keep track of specific transactions and prices.  
  
Large-scale energy trading has existed for only about a half-dozen years. Enron pioneered the business, and now dominates it, accounting for about one-quarter of all trading in the United States.  
  
Before Congress and federal regulators opened up the market for wholesale electricity, a process that began in earnest a decade ago, the power business was a simpler affair. Utilities were given areas of monopoly service, and their rates - and ability to deliver enough electricity - were overseen by state regulators. But with the move to deregulate the business, independent and unregulated generators and traders have flourished, providing an ever-growing portion of the nation's power.  
  
Beginning in the 1980s, the sale and transportation of natural gas was also deregulated, spurring Enron, which used to be primarily a gas-pipeline company, to move into the trading business.  
  
The company's shift to trading gas and electricity accelerated in the mid-1990s, with the ascension of Mr. Skilling, who became chief executive in February, just six months before his unexpected resignation. Underscoring the change in direction, in securities filings this year Enron described its principal business as ''security brokers, dealers and flotation.'' Before, it had said it was in the business of ''wholesale-petroleum and petroleum products.''  
  
For most of its ascent, Enron reported outstanding profit figures and Wall Street accepted them with pleasure. A year ago, when it disclosed the first transactions with partnerships led by Mr. Fastow, the company's former chief financial officer, analysts who asked questions were told that the deals were routine and were being disclosed only because of Mr. Fastow's involvement.  
  
Enron does not appear to face an immediate cash crunch. But the bank credit lines that it drew on last week to pay off its short-term debt will have to be renegotiated next spring. The controversial partnerships do not have to pay their debts until the following year - unless Enron loses its investment-grade credit rating before that.  
  
Enron will also need to maintain its large trading positions, which could suffer if participants in those markets grow more nervous about Enron's credit. When Long-Term Capital was stumbling in 1998, some Wall Street rivals sold the securities they thought Long-Term owned, trying to force Long-Term to sell its positions quickly and at a loss. Something similar in energy markets might be possible. If so, Enron might find, as Long-Term did, that positions that should offset each other do not.  
  
Enron's new chief financial officer may yet persuade investors that in fact the company's profits are real, and that its condition is better than the short-sellers believe. As questions are answered, confidence, and the share price, could rebound.  
  
But for now, investors are skittish, and some competitors are eager to take advantage of Enron's plight.

* * *

"Fox Outgrows Kids Programs," by Michael Schneider, _Variety_ , November 7, 2001

Fox is getting out of the weekday kids business and will hand the two-hour afternoon block back to affiliates.

Fox Kids will still exist as a four-hour block on Saturdays. But affils will be allowed to start programming the 2-4 PM time period themselves starting Dec. 31.

The net retains the right to take back and program the afternoon block as long as it informs affiliates six months ahead of time. But network distribution prexy Robert Quicksilver said Fox won’t reclaim the two hours before next fall.

As the kids advertising marketplace continues to suffer, affiliates have been pressuring Fox for some time to drop the money-losing afternoon kids’ block. Quicksilver said the decision was “just a response to the difficult ad climate the stations are finding themselves in.”

Time was ripe 

And now that ABC has completed its acquisition of Fox Family, which programmed the Fox Kids block, insiders said the timing made sense.

Quicksilver said the net would spend the next few months figuring out how to program the weekday afternoon slot. Affils are only three years into a 10-year deal with Fox that gives the network the right to program the 3-5 PM time period. As a sign of good faith, the net agreed to push that slot back by an hour in January.

Quicksilver said the move came with no quid pro quo attached.

“We’ve obviously taken a hard look at the kids time period for many years,” he said. “Revenues have declined in those periods. We’re doing this in the spirit of partnership with our affiliates.”

Fox will continue to feed affiliates episodes of _The Magic School Bus_ to meet the FCC’s three-hour educational programming rule; they may slot the show at their discretion.

Meanwhile, Fox syndication arm 20th Television has been ramping up its program development at least since last year in anticipation of Fox’s acquisition of the Chris-Craft television stations and the possibility of the Fox Kids block going away.

In some cities, such as Gotham and Los Angeles, the Fox Kids block has moved from the Fox-affiliated owned station to the newly acquired Chris-Craft station.

Since joining 20th last year, company prexy-chief operations officer Bob Cook has been a proponent of testing programs regionally on Fox O&Os. His group has several projects in the hopper that could help fill time periods being vacated on Fox stations and affils.

* * *

“Waste Management Settles,” CNN Money, November 7, 2001  
  
 _Leading U.S trash hauling firm settles class action lawsuit for $457 million_  
  
Shares of Waste Management Inc., the nation's largest trash hauler, rose Wednesday after it reported settling a class-action lawsuit for $457 million, while its third-quarter earnings missed Wall Street expectations.  
  
The Houston-based company said it would pay to settle a suit accusing it of violations of federal securities laws in connection with its 1998 merger with USA Waste Services and its statements about financial performance in the first three quarters of 1999.  
  
Waste Management said the settlement, which must still be approved by a federal court in Texas and the company's shareholders, will end all litigation against it and covers all people and entities that purchased company securities or sold put options from June 11, 1998 to Nov. 9, 1999.  
  
"We believe that this is a good and fair settlement for both the company and members of the class," CEO Maurice Myers said. "From our perspective, we see this as putting to rest the most significant issues from the past and allowing the company to remove the cloud of uncertainty that has been associated with this litigation."  
  
Waste Management (WMI: up $1.66 to $27.01) shares rose in midday trading.  
  
Last summer, the company and its auditing firm, Arthur Andersen, agreed to pay $229 million to settle another class-action suit about questionable accounting practices.  
  
Chicago-based Arthur Andersen will also pay Waste Management $20 million as part of a malpractice settlement. In June, Arthur Andersen agreed to pay a $7 million civil fine after the Securities and Exchange Commission accused it of "knowingly or recklessly" issuing false and misleading audit reports for Waste Management for the years 1993 through 1996 that inflated the company's earnings by more than $1 billion.  
  
Waste Management also reported third-quarter earnings of $226 million before the settlements and other one-time items, or 36 cents a share, compared with $208 million, or 33 cents a share, a year ago. Wall Street analysts surveyed by earnings tracker First Call expected Waste Management to earn 37 cents a share.  
  
Including one-time items and the settlements, the company earned just $30 million, or 5 cents a share, compared with a loss of $191 million, or 31 cents a share, a year ago. Revenue fell to $2.9 billion from $3.1 billion a year ago.  
  
Waste Management had been in financial trouble since Houston-based USA Waste bought it in 1998, took over its name, and moved its headquarters to Houston from Oak Brook, Illinois.  
  
In 1999 the combined company became embroiled in the accounting scandal and had to restate financial results for several quarters, leading its stock price to drop from more than $56 to as low as $13.  
  
It fired its top management and began selling off a slew of non-core businesses acquired during an aggressive expansion spree, and its results began to turn around this year.  
  
The company also said it will recommend to shareholders that its board be up for election each year.

* * *

"Rival to Buy Enron, Top Energy Trader, After Financial Fall," by Alex Berenson and Andrew Ross Sorkin, _The New York Times_ , November 10, 2001  
  
With its stock plunging and its finances in doubt, the world's largest energy trader, the Enron Corporation, agreed to be acquired yesterday by the rival Dynegy Inc. for about $9 billion in stock and the assumption of $13 billion in debt.  
  
The deal is an extraordinary turnabout for Enron, a Houston-based company that had been a driving force behind electricity deregulation nationwide.  
  
Its chairman, Kenneth L. Lay, a big contributor to the Republican Party, provided political influence, while its former chief executive, Jeffrey K. Skilling, helped create markets for the trading of electricity and natural gas. But last winter, when California's effort to deregulate the electricity market led to soaring power prices and rolling blackouts, Enron was the subject of much criticism and political anger.  
  
Recent disclosures of discrepancies in Enron's financial statements and an investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission caused the shares to plunge this week to their lowest level in a decade. As other companies became wary of doing business with it, Enron - also facing a potential cash squeeze - apparently had little choice but to find a buyer, and a deal was hastily cobbled together this week.  
  
For critics who had complained about Enron's market power and its dominance, the combination poses additional concerns. Dynegy's acquisition of Enron will be reviewed by state and federal agencies, led by the Justice Department and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Analysts said today that they expected scrutiny of the combined companies' holdings in California, where Dynegy owns power-generating plants and Enron accounts for much of the trading of natural gas - fuel for the state's electric power plants.  
  
Buying Enron at a deep discount - it has lost $60 billion in market value this year - could make Dynegy the dominant trader of electricity and natural gas. But the agreement carries big risks as well. Along with Enron's gas pipelines and high-technology trading floor, Dynegy will take on Enron's substantial debt and a web of complex transactions that Enron has spun over the last decade.  
  
In addition to the $13 billion in debt that Enron carries on its books, it has guaranteed at least $4 billion in off-balance sheet loans, and the hidden debt could total as much as $10 billion, said Carol Coale, a stock analyst with Prudential Securities.  
  
Charles L. Watson, Dynegy's chairman and chief executive, said yesterday that Dynegy could sort through Enron's tangled finances. ''We know the company well,'' Mr. Watson said. ''It's not like we just started fresh. I'm confident that it's as solid as we thought it was.''  
  
The new company will combine Enron's 25,000-mile natural gas pipeline system with the large number of power plants that Dynegy owns worldwide, as well as Illinois Power, a Dynegy subsidiary that serves 650,000 customers in Illinois. But its most important asset will be its trading desk. It will be the largest energy trader in the nation, trading more than twice as much power and natural gas as its closest competitors.  
  
Mr. Watson said the company did not expect to sell significant properties and that the deal should pass regulatory scrutiny. ''There's really not a lot of overlap in assets,'' he said.  
  
Mr. Watson and Steve Bergstrom, Dynegy's president, will hold those positions in the new company, which will be called Dynegy and remain in Houston. Mr. Lay, who created Enron in the mid-1980's, will not have any role in the combined company's daily operations. He has been asked to join its board but has not provided an answer. ''The last three weeks haven't been a lot of fun,'' he said.  
  
In a statement announcing the agreement yesterday afternoon, Mr. Watson said he was confident that the merger would produce a strong new company. ''Enron is the ideal strategic partner for Dynegy,'' Mr. Watson said. ''We will keep a strong balance sheet and straightforward financial structure as key priorities.''  
  
To shore up Enron's finances, Dynegy will immediately put $1.5 billion into Enron through ChevronTexaco, the recently-merged giant oil company, which already owns 27 percent of Dynegy. Another billion dollars will be injected once the deal is completed.  
  
Investors appeared comfortable yesterday that Dynegy could make the deal work. After falling $3, to $33, on Wednesday, when the companies first said they were in discussions, Dynegy rose $5.76 on Thursday and yesterday to close the week at $38.76.  
  
''On paper, it works,'' Ms. Coale of Prudential said. ''The combined company would be the leading trader, the market leader in most of their businesses.'' Ms. Coale, who has a sell rating on Enron and a buy rating on Dynegy, said she planned to keep her buy rating on Dynegy.  
  
As it works to have the deal approved, Dynegy will have to persuade Enron's traders to stay with the combined company. The pain of the stock's 90 percent plunge this year will not be equally shared. Some Enron employees have held onto their shares and seen their retirement accounts eviscerated. Meanwhile, Mr. Lay, Mr. Skilling and other former and current executives sold hundreds of millions of dollars in Enron stock in 2000 and this year.  
  
The companies also have very different corporate cultures. Dynegy emphasizes teamwork, while Enron is more competitive, said Ehud Ronn, director of the Center for Energy Finance Education and Research at the University of Texas. Even before the merger was announced, Enron had lost some of its employees to other energy trading companies, Mr. Ronn said.  
  
Some investors and analysts say that the problems with Enron's finances may extend beyond the partnerships that have been the subject of Wall Street's scrutiny the last month. James Chanos, a short seller who has been one of Enron's most vocal critics, said there was increasing evidence that Enron's energy trading operations were not as profitable as the company had said. ''There appears to be a culture at Enron of aggressively booking profits and deferring or obscuring losses,'' Mr. Chanos said.  
  
On Thursday, Enron said in a filing with the SEC that it had overstated its earnings by almost $600 million over the last five years. Mr. Chanos said more restatements were possible, noting that the filing disclosed partnerships had been used to hedge almost $1 billion in losses in 2000 and this year. So far, the losses from those partnerships remain off Enron's financial statements, Mr. Chanos said.  
  
Enron's stock had been under pressure for most of this year, as the company ran up large losses with failed efforts to expand outside its core trading operation. In August, Mr. Skilling resigned as chief executive, and Mr. Lay resumed control of daily operations.  
  
Still, the company appeared financially sound until last month, when it disclosed that its shareholders' equity, a measure of the company's value, dropped by $1.2 billion because of deals disclosed only hazily in its financial statements. The announcement unnerved investors, who wondered whether Enron had found ways to inflate its profits and move debt off its balance sheet, and led the SEC to begin an investigation.  
  
Mr. Lay tried to reassure investors that Enron's finances were in order and that its businesses remained strong. But the last three weeks have brought a series of damaging revelations about partnerships that Enron formed with some of its top executives, including its former chief financial officer, Andrew S. Fastow.  
  
With questions mounting, the major credit-rating agencies began to downgrade Enron's debt, putting additional pressure on the company. If Enron's debt rating falls below investment grade, it would be forced to repay $3.3 billion in loans that it had guaranteed.  
  
To strengthen its balance sheet and bolster its stock, Enron turned to big investors like Warren E. Buffett in search of billions of dollars of financing. When the financing did not quickly appear, its stock fell further.  
  
By this week, some major energy traders were refusing to extend credit to Enron, worrying that the company would be unable to make good on its contracts. The Mirant Corporation, an Atlanta-based power plant owner and electricity trader, sharply curtailed its trading with Enron this week. ''We're trading with them on a very limited basis,'' said James Peters, a Mirant spokesman. ''It's not business as usual.''  
  
On Wednesday, Enron's stock fell as low as $7 a share, its lowest level in more than a decade. That day, news of the Enron and Dynegy talks leaked out.  
  
By late Wednesday, the boards of the two companies had tentatively agreed to a deal. But Dynegy refused to go ahead until it learned whether Enron's credit rating would remain investment grade and was comfortable with the effect of the deal on its own rating. The deal moved forward yesterday after Dynegy was assured Enron's debt was not in danger of being lowered to junk status soon after the deal was announced, according to company officials.  
  
Dynegy and Enron had provided Standard & Poor's and Moody's Investors Service, the main credit agencies, with statements showing them what a combined company might look like and asked the ratings agencies for an expedited review of the transaction, Mr. Watson said.  
  
Under the deal, Enron shareholders will receive 0.2685 share of Dynegy stock for each Enron share, or $9.80 based on Dynegy's closing price on Thursday. Enron's stock gained 22 cents yesterday, to $8.63.  
  
''I never thought our stock price would be at this level,'' Mr. Lay said yesterday.  
  
Enron's shareholders will own only 36 percent of the combined company, and Dynegy will name at least 11 members of the company's 14-member board.  
  
If the deal falls apart, Enron or Dynegy will have to pay a breakup fee of $350 million.  
  
To protect Dynegy's and ChevronTexaco's cash infusion, the money will go to an Enron unit that owns the Northern Natural Gas Pipeline. If the merger is not completed, Dynegy will have the right to buy the unit.  
  
An army of bankers and lawyers advised the companies. Lehman Brothers Inc. acted as financial adviser and Baker Botts and Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld acted as counsel for Dynegy. J. P. Morgan & Company and Salomon Smith Barney acted as financial advisers for Enron, and Vinson & Elkins and Weil Gotshal & Manges acted as the company's counsel. Pillsbury Winthrop served as counsel to ChevronTexaco.

* * *

"Market Place-Dynegy's Rushed Gamble on Enron Carries Big Risks," by Alex Berenson and Richard A. Oppel, Jr., _The New York Times_ , November 12, 2001 **  
  
**Call it a $9 billion shotgun wedding.  
  
Dynegy Inc., an energy marketer and trader based in Houston, took the biggest gamble in its corporate history on Friday by agreeing to buy the Enron Corporation, its much larger crosstown rival, for more than $9 billion in stock. In one decisive move, Chuck Watson, the chairman of Dynegy, positioned his company to become the most important player in the volatile but potentially lucrative business of trading natural gas and electricity.  
  
But the hastily arranged deal carries big risks for Dynegy as well, skeptical investors and Wall Street analysts say. No one outside Enron appears to understand the company's tangled finances fully, and the speed with which the deal was made did not give Dynegy time to scrutinize in great detail Enron's trading book or the web of partnerships Enron has entered to move debt off its balance sheet and hide losses.  
  
The skeptics wonder why Dynegy decided to take on Enron's huge debt, which some analysts say could total $23 billion in loans on and off its balance sheet, instead of simply trying to hire away Enron's best traders, some of whom were already leaving the company.  
  
''There are many risks associated with this merger that we will not know about for a while,'' said Carol Coale, an analyst at Prudential Securities. ''We're not sure that we know everything there is to know at Enron yet.''  
  
In addition, Enron's earnings could be far lower than it has reported, said James Chanos, a short seller who has been a vocal critic. On Thursday, Enron said in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission that it had used partnerships to overstate its earnings by a total of $600 million over the last five years. Mr. Chanos said other information in the filing indicated that more restatements were possible.  
  
With so much uncertainty surrounding Enron's finances, Mr. Chanos and other analysts question Dynegy's decision to move so quickly.  
  
They note that Dynegy and Enron often traded with each other, and some analysts had wondered whether, if Enron had filed for bankruptcy, those trades might be wiped out, leaving Dynegy unhedged, or unprotected against sudden movements in the prices of natural gas or electricity.  
  
If, on the other hand, Enron is not forced to restate its profits down further, then Dynegy has clinched an amazing bargain. Analysts say Enron will make $1.80 a share this year, so Dynegy is paying just six times Enron's annual earnings, about a fourth the average ratio of companies in the Standard & Poor's 500.  
  
Dynegy said on Friday that the deal should increase its per-share earnings next year by 90 to 95 cents, to $3.40 to $3.50, even without factoring in up to a half-billion dollars in annual savings, before taxes, from the merger. Dynegy's shares closed Friday at $38.76, up $2.26, so if the company's forecast is accurate, it is trading at 11 times its 2002 earnings - still a bargain compared with the average stock in the S.&. P 500.  
  
Jeff Dietert, an analyst with Simmons & Company in Houston, said Dynegy's estimates for its earnings in 2002 were ''conservative and very achievable.''  
  
Mr. Watson said Friday that Dynegy was confident that Enron's operations and its trading business were healthy. ''We feel this is a very solid company with plenty of capacity to withstand whatever happens the next few months,'' he said.  
  
Mr. Dietert said Dynegy needed to strike a deal with Enron quickly to make sure that Enron's trading operations and financial health did not deteriorate any further. ''If Enron preserves the value of the marketing and trading company, then there is clearly value in the Enron stock,'' he said.  
  
Preserving Enron's investment-grade credit rating is crucial to keeping the trading operation afloat. To help convince Moody's Investors Service and Standard & Poor's, the major rating agencies, that Enron's rating should remain investment-grade, Dynegy has agreed to inject $1.5 billion into Enron immediately. Still, on Friday, both agencies cut Enron's rating to just one notch above noninvestment grade, or junk, status, and both suggested that the rating could fall further.  
  
So investors and creditors will watch carefully this week to see whether other energy companies continue trading with Enron, and whether the merger stems the outflow of talented Enron traders.  
  
Another question hanging over the deal is how easy it will be for Dynegy to walk away if Enron's finances turn out to be worse that Enron has already disclosed. The merger agreement, according to executives and investment bankers who shaped it, gives Dynegy the opportunity to quit the deal without penalty if major new problems surface. But what exactly those terms are remains unknown.  
  
So far, investors are giving Dynegy the benefit of the doubt. The company's stock rose 17 percent on Thursday and Friday. ''The market believes Chuck Watson and the Dynegy management team are very disciplined in the way they manage risks,'' Mr. Dietert said.

* * *

"In New Filing, Enron Reports Debt Squeeze," by Richard A. Oppel and Floyd Norris, _The New York Times_ , November 20, 2001 **  
  
**The Enron Corporation told investors yesterday that it faced debt repayments over the next year vastly in excess of its available cash. It said that if any of a number of things went wrong, its ability to continue as a going concern would be called into question.  
  
In a delayed quarterly filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the company said that it would have to repay $690 million in debt by next Tuesday if it did not come up with collateral for a loan.  
  
Enron has about $1.75 billion in cash and credit lines now available but faces debt repayments and other obligations of $9.15 billion by the end of next year. The report for the third quarter, which was filed five days late, says the company faces immediate demand for $3.9 billion in debts if its credit rating is downgraded any further.  
  
Enron's independent auditors with the firm of Arthur Andersen have not been able to complete their review of Enron's financial statements for the third quarter. Andersen already faces lawsuits over its audits of Enron's books related to Enron's disclosure this month that it had overstated almost $600 million in profits in the last five years. (And this in turn comes after Andersen settled with the SEC in June over its past misbehavior with client Waste Management, paying $75 million to settle litigation, $7 million to the SEC itself, and agreeing to a permanent anti-fraud injunction; the Enron news puts it in danger of being charged with violating the cease-and-desist order.) Enron has said that it will restate statements that Andersen certified and that those statements should no longer be relied upon.  
  
Yesterday, Representative John D. Dingell of Michigan, the ranking Democrat on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, called for an investigation into Arthur Andersen's handling of the Enron audits. A spokesman for Andersen could not be reached last night.  
  
Enron, the nation's largest energy trader, has agreed to be acquired by Dynegy Inc., its smaller crosstown rival in Houston, and credit rating agencies have said that a failure of that deal to go through would lead to a further downgrading of Enron, which is now at the lowest investment-grade rating. Any downgrades could lead to a collapse of Enron's core energy trading business, analysts say, as other energy trading companies might stop doing business with Enron entirely.  
  
The Dynegy deal is expected to close sometime next year, and the disclosures yesterday indicate that Enron may face challenges in meeting its obligations before then, particularly if the closing of the deal is delayed. Enron said it hoped to complete the transaction by the end of next September.  
  
Enron is in talks to obtain $500 million to $1 billion in additional financing through an equity infusion from major banks and institutions. In addition, executives have said they are hoping to close deals to sell $800 million in assets by the end of the year, and perhaps a few billion dollars of assets next year. Enron is also set to receive a $1 billion infusion from ChevronTexaco, which owns a 27 percent stake in Dynegy, if the deal closes next year.  
  
Still, even after factoring in cash flow from Enron's core energy-trading operations, Enron could be left well short of what it needs to satisfy the huge obligations due by the end of next year - meaning that Enron will probably have to work to persuade bankers to restructure debts or extend maturities.  
  
Carol Coale, an analyst for Prudential Securities in Houston, said the new disclosures indicated that Enron's troubles had run deeper than what investors and analysts believed, even as the stock crashed early this month before the merger with Dynegy was announced.  
  
''Our initial read was that this might have been like a run on the bank,'' Ms. Coale said. ''But now it sounds like Enron's problems were actually more inherent than perceived.''  
  
Enron's deal with Dynegy calls for Enron holders to receive 0.2685 Dynegy share for each Enron share, but in trading since the deal was announced Enron's share price has lagged Dynegy's price, reflecting investor doubts that the deal will be completed at the announced terms.  
  
In New York Stock Exchange trading yesterday, before the Enron filing was released, Enron rose 6 cents, to $9.06, and Dynegy rose $1.13, to $43.60. At those prices, the value of the Dynegy offer is 29.2 percent above Enron's share price, compared with a 20.6 percent difference when the deal was announced.  
  
Some debts that Enron might have to pay quickly if its bond rating is lowered could be satisfied by selling shares, but such sales would probably reduce the stock price further. And the merger agreement with Dynegy provides that the exchange ratio would be reduced if Enron sold stock at prices below the implied value under the merger - currently $11.71 an Enron share.  
  
In after-hours trading yesterday, after the release of the Enron filing, the share price slipped to $9.  
  
Enron had previously said it was reducing its profits taken in previous years by more than $500 million. Yesterday's filing provided some additional details on Enron's relationships with various related partnerships whose debts Enron could be forced to pay, and it said that additional write-offs could come as early as the current quarter if it concluded that asset values in the partnerships had declined. It said that because Enron's stock value had fallen, one writedown could be $700 million.  
  
The disclosures show that Enron erected complicated financial structures that in some cases seem to have been meant to allow the company to avoid taking losses on assets and in other cases were aimed at keeping debts off its balance sheet.  
  
But the collapse of Enron's stock price has both worsened the situation for some of those entities and greatly increased the cost Enron would face if it needed to pay off the debts.  
  
''It is not possible to predict,'' Enron warned investors, whether its asset sales or debt refinancings would be successful. ''An adverse outcome with respect to any of these matters would likely have a material adverse impact on Enron's ability to continue as a going concern.''

* * *

"Enron's Growing Financial Crisis Raises Doubts About Merger Deal," by Richard A. Oppel, Jr., _The New York Times_ , November 21, 2001 **  
  
**Shares of Enron plunged 23 percent yesterday as expectations grew in the stock and bond markets that Dynegy would either back out of its deal to rescue the company or seek to renegotiate terms of their merger.  
  
Wall Street analysts said top officials of both companies had not known until the last few days that a recent downgrading of Enron's credit meant that it would face a $690 million loan payment next week unless it could come up with collateral. Enron's disclosure of the obligation late on Monday - along with new numbers about the extent of its cash squeeze - raised fresh doubts among investors about Enron's financial controls and credibility, they said.  
  
Other trading companies, worried about being paid as Enron's financial picture has darkened, continued yesterday to limit their exposure to the company, which has been the nation's biggest energy trader. Analysts also expressed concern about the rate at which Enron appeared to be burning through cash.  
  
Yesterday evening, Karen Denne, a spokeswoman for Enron, which is based in Houston, said the company had obtained ''verbal indications'' from lenders that they would extend the time Enron had to repay the $690 million debt. Details of the extension - including how long it would last - were still being worked out, she said. The payment had been due next Tuesday.  
  
An executive close to the talks said that bankers could ''see a light at the end of the tunnel'' for Enron, in the form of the deal with Dynegy, and so had an incentive to roll over the loan.  
  
Dynegy, also based in Houston, declined to comment about details of Enron's disclosures, which came in a delayed report by the company - a so-called 10Q filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission - of its third-quarter results.  
  
Just a week ago, Dynegy's chief executive, Chuck Watson, reassured investors that Enron's business was strong and that a $1.5 billion cash infusion by ChevronTexaco, Dynegy's biggest investor, would calm the market's jitters. Dynegy was less impassioned yesterday. A spokesman, John Sousa, said that ''to the best of my knowledge, there have been no changes'' in the merger plans. He added, ''We are in due diligence, and the 10Q is an important part of due diligence,'' he said. Due diligence refers to a company's thorough review of the financial and commercial soundness of a pending deal. The merger deal, announced on November 9, allows Dynegy to back out of the transaction should there be a ''material adverse change'' in circumstances.  
  
Enron shares fell $2.07, to $6.99, in trading yesterday; Dynegy shares fell 4.4 percent, or $1.90, to $41.70.  
  
Those stock prices suggest widespread investor skepticism that the deal will go through under the current terms, which call for each Enron share to be exchanged for 0.2685 share of Dynegy. At yesterday's prices, Dynegy would be paying a 60 percent premium for Enron.  
  
A year ago, Enron's stock market valuation topped $60 billion, and the company was considered the smartest and most fearsome company in the electricity and natural gas industries. Its chief executive, Kenneth L. Lay, was a key backer and confidante of President George W. Bush; its name was hoisted above Houston's new baseball stadium, Enron Field.  
  
But Enron's shares have slid 92 percent from their peak, dropping its valuation to $5.2 billion, with a series of unwelcome disclosures in the last month - including the admission that it has overstated profits by almost $600 million since 1997.  
  
Now, some analysts and executives at rival energy trading companies say Enron faces collapse if the merger with Dynegy, a much smaller company, falls apart.  
  
''If Enron is out there standing on its own, I don't think that's sustainable,'' said a senior executive of one of Enron's largest energy-trading competitors.  
  
Besides Dynegy's continued commitment to the merger, analysts and industry executives said the most crucial issue for Enron was restoring the confidence of investors and trading partners in its financial health.  
  
The restatement of earnings two weeks ago and other disclosures about complex dealings with partnerships, some of them run by Enron's former chief financial officer, had prompted the major credit-rating agencies to rate Enron's bond's at the lowest investment-grade level.  
  
''If the rating agencies take them below investment grade, they can't do business anymore,'' the rival executive said yesterday. ''That's become almost conventional wisdom.'' Another downgrade could force Enron to pay or refinance up to $3.9 billion in debt, and it could prompt other energy traders to halt dealings with the company entirely.  
  
In fact, Standard & Poor's, one of the major credit-rating agencies, gave Enron something of a vote of confidence yesterday. While it will continue to review the company for a potential downgrade, S&P said, it expects Enron's near-term financial health ''to be sufficient to carry the company through the completion of its proposed merger with Dynegy.''  
  
S&P noted that Enron was continuing to negotiate with major banks and other institutions for an infusion of $500 million or more in new equity and that Enron executives still believed that the company would complete the sale of $800 million in assets by the end of the year, raising badly needed cash.  
  
Major energy trading companies continued to limit their exposure to Enron and carefully watch the company's financial condition. Officials at the El Paso Corporation and Reliant Energy, two large energy traders in Houston, said yesterday that they continued to do business with Enron.  
  
But others have pulled back. Mirant, a large electricity generator and trader in Atlanta, is ''trading on a very limited basis, and we don't expect to broaden that until Enron's credit situation improves,'' a spokesman said.  
  
Executives at two other companies that rank among the nation's largest traders but who spoke on condition their companies not be identified, also said they had scaled back trading. One of those companies was selling natural gas and electricity to Enron only in cases in which the sales helped balance its account with Enron, an executive said.  
  
''We're trying to do business that offsets our risk,'' the executive said.  
  
Ms. Denne, the Enron spokeswoman, said the company's ''transaction volume remains within the normal range,'' adding that there was ''no recognizable change'' yesterday in the number of companies willing to trade with Enron.  
  
''No one significant has dropped off,'' she said.  
  
Analysts said Enron's disclosures late on Monday indicated that the company was using up cash more rapidly than had previously been thought. Most of the $5.5 billion that the company has taken in through equity infusions and borrowings the last month has already been depleted.  
  
''The cash burn is greater than anticipated,'' said Carol Coale, an analyst with Prudential Securities in Houston. ''They are in obvious need of cash.'' She estimated that by next summer, Enron could be $2 billion short of the cash it would need to meet its obligations.  
  
Ms. Coale noted that the $690 million obligation whose disclosure shook the markets yesterday was set off by a credit downgrade on November 12 - two days before a conference call with investors. When she asked an Enron official yesterday why the matter was not disclosed in the call, Ms. Coale said, she was told, ''We weren't aware of that contingency at the time of that call.''  
  
Donato J. Eassey, an analyst in Houston with Merrill Lynch, said in a report that Dynegy, too, was unaware of the obligation. He calculated that Enron had exhausted about $5 billion in cash the last 50 days.  
  
Ms. Denne, the Enron spokeswoman, said that the company had paid off $1.9 billion in short-term IOUs, used more than $1 billion to post deposits with its trading partners and spent $800 million to $1 billion to pay off or refinance other loans.  
  
The company has about $1.2 billion in cash, she said, not including $450 million from a new line of credit that closed this week and a separate credit line with $103 million remaining.  
  
Jitters about Enron's future extended to the debt market, where prices for the company's bonds fell sharply yesterday. Enron's short-term bonds fell 5 points, to about 80 cents for each dollar of face value, according to traders in distressed securities. Its longer-term debt, maturing in 2004 or later, dropped 10 points, to around 60 cents on the dollar. Enron's bank debt has not traded recently, these traders said.

* * *

"ENRON'S COLLAPSE-THE LAST RESORT; A Bankruptcy Filing Might Be the Best Remaining Choice," by Jonathan D. Glater, _The New York Times_ , November 29, 2001  
  
Enron, facing the collapse of a deal with Dynegy that might have rescued it from disaster and a tidal wave of debts suddenly coming due, may now have little choice but to enter bankruptcy, lawyers and analysts said yesterday.  
  
Filing for protection under Chapter 11 of the Federal Bankruptcy Code would give the company some much-needed breathing room to deal with creditors' claims, as well as afford any eventual buyer the advantage of a court's approval.  
  
But bankruptcy would also be complicated by the fact that some of Enron's most valuable assets, including its Transwestern Pipeline linking Texas natural gas fields with California energy markets, are already pledged to lenders. The value of other assets available to satisfy unsecured creditors is unclear.  
  
Still, Enron's creditors will not necessarily lose everything, said Robert J. Rosenberg, a lawyer at Latham & Watkins, which is expected to represent some of the creditors in any Enron bankruptcy. ''It depends on whether there is a good ongoing business'' that could make payments in the future, he said.  
  
Once they decide bankruptcy is unavoidable, lawyers said, one of the first critical issues Enron executives face will be where to file for Chapter 11 protection. Enron has its headquarters in Houston and receives significant attention from news media in Texas, but it is incorporated in Oregon and filing there might lead some creditors to decide that participating in bankruptcy proceedings there would be too costly.  
  
Delaware might be a preferred location. The courts there are very experienced in handling large bankruptcies and are known to be relatively friendly to debtors, said Jay Westbrook, a professor at the University of Texas School of Law in Austin. ''On the other hand,'' he said, ''I am told that recently Delaware has gotten so busy that they have been sending cases back where they should be.''  
  
Enron could file in Delaware if a subsidiary were incorporated there, he said.  
  
Secured creditors would be paid first. If the assets backing the loan have been valued accurately, those creditors would be paid in full. Unsecured creditors are likely to receive only a fraction of the value of their outstanding loans. If anything is left, it would go to stockholders, lawyers said.  
  
Enron would have to line up lenders fairly quickly to pay for its continuing operations, several lawyers said. One lawyer who has worked with the company in the past estimates that it would need a $1 billion credit line to continue to operate its energy-trading business.  
  
Continuing to operate would be important if the goal is to sell the business as a whole - perhaps to Dynegy - in a court-supervised auction. The alternative would be to sell the company's various assets and operations in pieces, Professor Westbrook said.  
  
Entering bankruptcy would be bad news for shareholders who have filed lawsuits accusing Enron of violating securities laws; any awards would not be paid until after creditors were satisfied. And like Enron's other shareholders, they might end up with nothing, said Robert D. Albergotti, a partner at Haynes & Boone, a Dallas law firm.  
  
If Enron files for bankruptcy, this is not likely to prevent litigation against Arthur Andersen, the company's outside auditor, said Jeffrey N. Gordon of Columbia University Law School. Indeed, bankruptcy proceedings could give both the company and investors an opportunity to figure out exactly how its profits came to be overstated and to look for potential fraud.  
  
A special committee of Enron's board has already retained Deloitte & Touche, another big accounting firm, to help.  
  
''It's going to be a while before they figure it all out,'' Professor Gordon said.

* * *

"Disney Refocusing Family Channel," by Gary Levin, _USA Today_ , December 2, 2001

Disney is adding its own brand of family to the former Fox Family Channel, but has changed its tune about converting the cable network into the All-ABC Rerun Channel.

The prospect of airing repeats, thus spreading programming costs across another network, was a key rationale in the $2.9 billion deal Disney made for Family, which reaches 83 million homes with cable or satellite TV. Disney relaunched the network as ABC Family last month.

Fearing that viewers (and cable systems that carry the channel) might reject an ABC clone, Disney promises to maintain a balance of original and repeat shows, positioning the channel as "a broad-appeal programming network with its own identity," says ABC Television president Steve Bornstein.

"Definitely one of the key reasons they bought it was for repurposing," says Kagan World Media analyst Derek Baine, "but you don't want to have a whole primetime lineup of stuff that's already been on ABC."

There certainly will be ABC reruns: Look for a New Year's Day marathon of the drama _Alias_ , ushering in weekly airings of the series several days after each episode's ABC network premiere. The sitcom _According to Jim_ also is expected to join the permanent ABC Family lineup early next year. So will upcoming drama _The Court_ , starring Sally Field as a Supreme Court justice, and the reality series _The Mole II_ , when it returns to ABC in spring or summer.

And ABC Family plans a news hour featuring old entertainment-oriented ABC News footage, such as celebrity interviews conducted by Barbara Walters and Diane Sawyer. But there'll be no extra airings of _Nightline_ or _Good Morning America_ , as once discussed.

ABC and its cable sister plan to share plenty of movies, including _Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone_ , which Disney last week paid $70 million to acquire in a 10-year TV deal.

Kids' programming will be limited to a two- to three-hour morning block to include _Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers_ as well as cartoons from the Disney library already seen on its other cable channels. And a two-hour sitcom block, airing weekdays from 6 to 8 PM ET/PT, will seek to re-create the former TGIF package that aired for years on Fridays, using shows such as _The Wonder Years_ and _Step by Step_ , plus new additions.

ABC Family plans to develop new series next year to complement some existing reality shows and dramas, including the nostalgic _State of Grace_ , which will continue airing on the network. In prime time, ABC Family will move a regular movie an hour later, to 9 PM ET/PT, and add other shows. And Disney says it will still consider the potential of making a rerun-based channel for ABC and Disney Channel programming for the future, as well as a number of other programming branching out.

"We want to take the progress made in the last year or so with (Fox) Family and enhance it," aggressively packaging and cross-promoting the channel with ABC, Bornstein says. He expects that the country's current mood will make it easier to sell the "comfortable, familiar concept" of family programming.

The network has had a checkered history: Under televangelist Pat Robertson, it succeeded with reruns such as _Bonanza_ , attracting an older audience not sought by advertisers. Despite its name, only about one-third of homes watching the network included kids.

When Fox bought the channel in 1997, programmers sought a new dual audience — kids in daytime, families at night — but the strategy failed. Instead, Fox Family "chased away some of the older viewers and never really replaced the core audience," Baine says. Prime-time ratings declined 35% in the past three years. So Bornstein expects a more gradual transition.

* * *

"Enron Corp. Files Largest U.S. Claim for Bankruptcy," by Richard A. Oppel, Jr. and Andrew Ross Sorkin, _The New York Times_ , December 3, 2001  
  
Enron, which became one of the world's dominant energy companies by reshaping the way natural gas and electricity are bought and sold, filed the largest corporate bankruptcy in American history yesterday and blamed the company that had presented itself as its rescuer.  
  
The Enron Corporation sued Dynegy, a crosstown Houston rival that had agreed to acquire Enron on November 9, for backing out last week after citing what it called Enron's rapid deterioration and misrepresentations. Enron immediately collapsed, making a bankruptcy filing all but certain.  
  
Once the world's largest energy trader, Enron is now seeking $1 billion or more in loans and a partnership with a major bank to allow it to stay in business.  
  
Given Enron's size, as the nation's seventh-largest company in revenue last year, and its baffling complexity, creditors, which include major financial institutions around the world, are likely to face drawn-out proceedings to receive repayment.  
  
The lawsuit demands at least $10 billion in damages from Dynegy and a court order blocking the company from seizing a natural gas pipeline that is one of Enron's most prized assets. Dynegy says its actions were entirely legal. Under the terms of its agreement with Enron, it says, it plans to take control of the pipeline on December 12 in return for its $1.5 billion investment in Enron.  
  
Although Enron's energy-trading operation was widely thought to be near collapse before Dynegy agreed to the acquisition, Enron's lawsuit essentially accuses Dynegy of using the merger as a ploy to weaken Enron even further. By calling off the deal, Dynegy ''sought to put an end to Enron as a competitive force'' and therefore bolster its own business, the lawsuit said.  
  
Dynegy's chairman, Chuck Watson, said last night that Enron's lawsuit is ''frivolous'' and that his company ''intends to pursue an action for the damages that Enron has caused Dynegy.''  
  
''Enron's charges against Dynegy are false, and the public should be wary of Enron's efforts to deflect attention from the facts,'' Mr. Watson added.  
  
Enron's bankruptcy filing, and its indication that creditors' best hopes for recovery may come partly from litigation against its onetime merger partner, ends the company's downfall. Its stock, worth $90 at its peak last year, is now nearly worthless, and other traders quit doing business with it last week for fear they would not be paid.  
  
In filings with the Federal Bankruptcy Court in New York, Enron sought Chapter 11 protection from creditors while it reorganizes. The filings by Enron and its affiliates included its energy trading business and 12 of its other units, but not its pipelines. The company lists assets of $49.8 billion and debts of $31.2 billion, but these debts do not include many items not listed on its financial statements.  
  
The largest previous bankruptcy filing, measured by assets, was Texaco's 1987 filing, which listed $35.9 billion in assets. That filing came after Pennzoil won a large judgment from Texaco for breaking up Pennzoil's merger with Getty.  
  
In its struggle to remain a functioning business and avoid liquidation, Enron said it was in advanced talks to obtain new loans. People close to the talks said the loan agreements, probably for more than $1 billion, might be completed by the end of today.  
  
Enron is also preparing for large-scale layoffs, primarily in Houston, where it employs 7500.  
  
Enron said it was also talking with leading financial institutions to restart its huge trading operations through a new joint venture. Under this strategy, the partnership would use the institutions' financial strength to guarantee that Enron would pay its bills, thus giving other energy traders confidence to resume doing business with Enron.  
  
People close to the talks said that Enron's two leading banks, JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup, were among the institutions discussing the joint venture. ''Enron would be the muscle; the banks would be the money,'' an executive close to the talks said.  
  
In an interview yesterday, Jeff McMahon, Enron's chief financial officer, said that establishing a joint venture makes the best sense for creditors. While Enron has a large pipeline business and other tangible properties, its core energy-trading operation was by far its most valuable franchise and the biggest generator of profits.  
  
''We're having multiple discussions with multiple potential joint-venture partners, and each one of the options are different,'' he said.  
  
Enron said that it would provide the new operation with traders, technology and a back office. Trades would be done through EnronOnline, the Internet platform that was until recently the industry's largest market maker. Any joint venture would be subject to the approval of a bankruptcy judge.  
  
Enron's lawsuit illustrates how acrimonious the merger effort became. The suit had to be filed quickly because Dynegy was preparing to take control of the Northern Natural Gas pipeline, Enron's largest. Dynegy had given Enron $1.5 billion as part of its merger agreement to help stabilize Enron's business, and it received an option to acquire the pipeline if the merger was terminated. Dynegy says it has exercised that option, but Enron says that the merger termination was illegal.  
  
Several major credit-rating agencies have said they are continuing to consider downgrading Dynegy because of the risk of litigation with Enron. But some analysts say Dynegy is on firm legal ground, both in its defense of the lawsuit and its right to take over the pipeline.  
  
Jeff Dietert, an analyst with Simmons & Company in Houston, said he believed that since the signing of the merger, additional shareholder lawsuits, credit-rating downgrades, disclosures of additional debts and the deterioration of the trading business had all harmed Enron's value.  
  
''It seems like a number of things are contributing to material changes at Enron,'' Mr. Dietert said.  
  
But Enron says that soon after it signed the deal, Dynegy began to undermine Enron by publicly wavering in its commitment to the merger and by dragging out negotiations on revising the merger terms. Specifically, the complaint says that Dynegy helped push Enron under by taking ''affirmative action, through on-the-record and off-the-record comments, to create substantial doubt and uncertainty concerning its willingness to consummate the merger.'' Part of this plan, Enron said, was Dynegy's tactic of proposing and then rejecting terms for the merger.  
  
Dynegy's own business ''stood to gain dramatically if Dynegy could push Enron into a collapse,'' Enron argued.  
  
''Thus, by creating instability for Enron,'' Enron said, ''Dynegy seized on the opportunity to grab a substantial portion of the enormous market share of Enron as the company was incapacitated.''  
  
Dynegy has said part of the reason it backed out was Enron's disclosure of debts in a securities filing on November 19 that revealed information far different from what Dynegy had known. This included a $690 million debt that suddenly became due the end of November because of a credit rating downgrade three days after the merger.  
  
But in its lawsuit, Enron disputed that it had misrepresented its finances, that Dynegy knew about the $690 million before the merger agreement was signed and that the accelerated payment of the debt was set off only after that date.  
  
Outside lawyers have said that a judge would be likely to take a hard look at a recent case involving Tyson Foods and IBP, a beef producer. A judge in Delaware ordered Tyson to complete its buyout of IBP after their proposed combination collapsed. Tyson, like Dynegy, had argued that it was not fully informed about IBP's financial problems when it negotiated to acquire the company.  
  
Enron's bankruptcy filings list 50 pages of creditors, including some of the nation's largest banks. The Citibank unit of Citigroup is owed $3 billion, although that number apparently reflects money owed to other banks on loans that Citibank arranged.  
  
Among the other notable debts are almost $2 million owed to Arthur Andersen, Enron's auditors, and $44.2 million in debts to Dynegy itself. It also reported owing $35.5 million to the California Power Exchange, which bought electricity for use in that state.  
  
Some of the largest financial institutions in the world were owed large amounts by Enron subsidiaries when the filings were made. In addition to billions in bonds and bank debts, Enron said it had trade debts of $185 million to two offices of the Chase Manhattan Bank, of $126 million to Barclays Bank, of $74 million to UBS and of $71 million to Credit Suisse First Boston.

* * *

"AT&T Broadband to Merge with Comcast Corporation in $72 Billion Transaction", PRNewsire, December 19, 2001 ****  
  
****NEW YORK, NY AND PHILADELPHIA, PA  
  
 _Strategic Combination Creates One of the Most Powerful Communications, Media and Entertainment Companies in the World_  
  
Nation's Premiere Broadband Services Network Will Serve More Than 22 Million Subscribers  
  
AT&T (NYSE: T) and Comcast Corporation (NASDAQ: CMCSA, CMCSK) today announced that their Boards of Directors approved a definitive agreement to combine AT&T Broadband with Comcast in a transaction that values AT&T Broadband at an aggregate value of $72 billion. The transaction will create the world's pre-eminent broadband services company and is expected to be tax-free to shareowners.  
  
The new company, to be called AT&T Comcast Corporation, will be one of the leading and most powerful communications, media and entertainment companies in the world. It will have approximately 22 million subscribers and a major presence in 17 of the United States' 20 largest metropolitan areas, including Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas-Fort Worth, Denver, Detroit, Miami, Philadelphia, and San Francisco-Oakland. It will be the world's leading provider of broadband video, voice and data services with annual pro forma revenue of approximately $19 billion. The combined company will have a presence in 41 states with approximately 5 million digital video customers, 2.2 million high-speed data customers and one million cable telephony customers.  
  
AT&T Comcast Corporation will begin life with a clear mandate to aggressively expand the availability of those services throughout its service areas, including plans to bring a choice in local telephone service to more than 38 million homes passed by its cable systems. The new company's telephony footprint will have national reach and its scale will allow it to develop and deploy new broadband applications such as video on demand and interactive television.  
  
AT&T's decision, which received unanimous approval and full support by its Board of Directors, culminates a rigorous process that began last July when the AT&T Board directed management to assess strategic and financial alternatives for its Broadband unit to create long-term shareowner value.  
  
"AT&T Comcast will create value for its customers, shareowners and employees by bringing more services to more people more quickly," said C. Michael Armstrong, Chairman and CEO of AT&T. "This is a leap forward in realizing a vision that thousands of AT&T people have worked toward - bringing greater choice in affordable broadband video, voice and data services to even more American homes. AT&T Broadband and Comcast can accomplish more together than we could alone. Our shareowners and our employees will both benefit from the industry-leading growth we will achieve."  
  
Brian L. Roberts, president of Comcast Corporation, said, "Bringing together AT&T Broadband and Comcast, creates a company with a national footprint and a powerful growth platform uniquely positioned to efficiently deliver content and entertainment to its customers. I look forward to working with Mike and the AT&T Broadband team to achieve the full potential of this tremendous new company.  
  
"We are particularly excited about the telephony prospects," Brian Roberts continued. "The size of our telephony footprint, combined with AT&T's expertise and leadership in the telephony space, will enable us to accelerate the deployment of telephone services to many new markets."  
  
"This transaction is the most rewarding and important step Comcast has taken since I started the company nearly four decades ago," said Ralph J. Roberts, chairman of Comcast Corporation. "Combining Comcast with AT&T Broadband is a once in a lifetime opportunity that creates immediate value and positions the company for additional growth in the future. Shareholders, employees and customers alike are poised to reap considerable benefits from this remarkable union."  
  
Terms of the agreement

  * Under the terms of the definitive agreement, AT&T will spin off AT&T Broadband and simultaneously merge it with Comcast, forming a new company to be called AT&T Comcast Corporation.
  * AT&T shareholders will receive approximately 0.34 shares of AT&T Comcast Corporation for each share of AT&T they own (subject to adjustment based on the number of AT&T shares at closing). Comcast shareholders will receive one share of AT&T Comcast Corporation for each Comcast share they own.
  * AT&T shareowners will own a 56 percent economic stake and about a 66 percent voting interest in the new company. The Roberts family, which owns Comcast Class B shares, will control one third of the new company's outstanding voting interest.
  * AT&T Comcast Corporation's assets will consist of both companies' cable TV systems, as well as AT&T's interests in cable television joint ventures and its 25.5 percent interest in Time Warner Entertainment, and Comcast's interests in QVC, E! Entertainment, The Golf Channel, and other entertainment properties.
  * The new company will assume nearly $20 billion in debt and other liabilities from AT&T and its subsidiaries, as well as $5 billion of AT&T subsidiary trust convertible preferred securities held by Microsoft Corporation, making the aggregate value of the transaction to AT&T shareholders worth $72 billion, based on the closing price of Comcast Class K stock on December 19.
  * AT&T shareowners would receive value equivalent to $13.07 per AT&T share based on Comcast's closing share price on Wednesday, December 19, while retaining complete ownership of AT&T's traditional communications businesses.



In conjunction with the transaction, Microsoft Corporation has agreed to convert the $5 billion of AT&T subsidiary trust convertible preferred securities into 115 million shares of AT&T Comcast Corporation.  
  
AT&T and Comcast will each contribute five Board members to the new company and they will jointly select two additional members who have no current affiliation with either company. Brian Roberts, 42, will be Chief Executive Officer of the new company. As part of the agreement, Armstrong will serve as Chairman of the new company when the merger closes instead of retiring from AT&T in May 2003 as he had planned. The AT&T Comcast Corporation transaction is expected to close at the end of 2002. Until then, Armstrong, 63, will remain Chairman and CEO of AT&T. AT&T Comcast Corporation will be headquartered in Philadelphia and maintain executive offices in the New York City area.  
  
Armstrong and Roberts have also established a transition team to address issues arising from the merger of AT&T Broadband and Comcast from today's announcement through the closing. The members of the transition team are Steven Burke, president of Comcast Cable, Charles H. Noski, chief financial officer of AT&T, William Schleyer, president and CEO of AT&T Broadband, and Lawrence Smith, executive vice president of Comcast Corporation.  
  
Accounting for non-strategic assets that have been, or will be, sold, AT&T originally paid about $4,100 per subscriber for TCI and MediaOne, largely in AT&T stock. Today's announcement values AT&T's cable systems at approximately $4,500 per subscriber based on today's closing price of Comcast stock and gives AT&T shareowners majority ownership of the nation's leading broadband services company with an initial total aggregate value of approximately $120 billion.  
  
The merger of AT&T Broadband and Comcast is subject to regulatory review, approval by both companies' shareholders and certain other conditions. AT&T also intends to proceed with other aspects of its previously announced restructuring, including the creation of a tracking stock for its consumer services unit, which is expected to be fully distributed to AT&T shareholders following shareholder approval in mid-2002.  
  
Following the separation of AT&T Broadband and the establishment of the AT&T Consumer tracking stock, the familiar "T" stock symbol will reflect the financial results of AT&T Business, which will retain ownership of the "AT&T" brand. AT&T Business is one of the world's leading providers of enterprise voice and data communications, serving more than 4.2 million customers. For the 12 months ended September 30, 2001, AT&T Business had revenue of more than $28 billion and earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT), excluding other income, asset impairments and pre-tax equity earnings, of approximately $5 billion. In the same period, AT&T Consumer had revenue of nearly $16 billion and EBIT, on the same basis, of about $5.4 billion, with margins that are three times those of its largest competitor.  
  
Credit Suisse First Boston and Goldman Sachs acted as financial advisors to AT&T. Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan, Merrill Lynch and Quadrangle Group acted as financial advisors to Comcast. Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz is legal advisor to AT&T. Davis Polk & Wardwell is legal advisor to Comcast.  
  
About AT&T  
AT&T is among the world's premier voice, video and data communications companies, serving consumers, businesses and government. Backed by the research and development capabilities of AT&T Labs, the company runs the world's largest, most sophisticated communications network and is the largest cable operator in the U.S. The company is a leading supplier of data, Internet and managed services for businesses and offers outsourcing, consulting and networking-integration to large businesses.  
  
About Comcast  
Comcast Corporation is principally engaged in the development, management and operation of broadband cable networks and in the provision of content through principal ownership of QVC, Comcast-Spectacor and Comcast SportsNet, a controlling interest in E! Entertainment Television and through programming investments.  
  
Comcast's Class A Special Common Stock and Class A Common Stock are traded on The NASDAQ Stock Market under the symbols CMCSK and CMCSA, respectively.

* * *

Interview with Fleetwood Mac (except John McVie), _Rolling Stone_ , December 20, 2001

Q: So, where would you say exactly the band is at this moment?  
Christine McVie: After we toured (1997 live album) _The Dance,_ I was seriously beginning to feel ill at ease with the whole thing and began to think of wanting time to myself. Now, all during the tour, we'd been working hard to be on an even keel, be good kids, and consciously work not to hurt each other. But when I said those thoughts, everything came roaring out, and now we were at each other's throats again. And given that we all have different lawyers, separate managers and there is no one overseeing the group, it would've been easy to splinter. But someone, I forget who, told us it might be a good idea to see a so-called "performance therapist" and essentially hash things out.  
Mick Fleetwood:: Over this period, we came to discover something. Of course we do have to dial things back and basically get in a healthier place psychically, but we also can't let go of our strife completely. Apparently, if we'd tried to keep on the course we'd been doing with the tour, it might easily allow us to function and keep on rolling, even if Christine left, but we'd lose sight of the drive, the fire that actually sustains us, and that our batteries would run down. Something would break, and we wouldn't be dealing with it well. So, we have to take risks and be willing to get back in the lion cage, because even if we'll never like each other, the work will continue to flow and keep us truly alive.  
Q: Would all that mean that a new record will be emerging from all of this?  
Stevie Nicks: It's looking like a very real possibility. Except for the dates with Courtney Love, we haven't been out playing since we finished the cycle for _The Dance_ , and while doing our therapy, the urge to make music has been surfacing. We've been working a lot of material, possibly enough for a double album. Of course, Christine, Lindsey and myself are very protective of our songs, and don't particularly like outside interference. But of course some is necessary. So, a lot of screaming matches have resulted, and some broken furniture too.  
Q: That brings up another point: with all the attention and focus on sexual predators that has emerged since Harvey Weinstein's fall, do you think there are people that are going criticize and attack you for associating with Lindsey?  
Lindsey Buckingham: Everyone knows about the battery and assault that happened during _Tango in the Night_ , that I did that to Stevie, and she did it back to me, and it wasn't the first time. It would be easy to blame that all on the cocaine, but it was clearly deeper than that. But even before our therapy, I'd worked to come to terms with that and build a better version of myself. It's not relevant to where we are at today. Simply put, if something ever happened where I'm not in Fleetwood Mac again, it's not because of that assault, but likely something creative.  
Q: When do you expect a new record to emerge.  
CM: Likely this time next year, or early 2003. Then of course, we're going to take it out on the road.  
MF: We'll be creating quite a new show, different from _The Dance_. Of course the hits and the new material would be there in spades, but we're also going to dig deeper into the pre-'75 material. Digging out "Oh Well", "Shake Your Moneymaker" and all that. Stevie really wants to do "Black Magic Woman." Now Lindsey isn't necessarily comfortable with those songs, so we have augmented the main band, besides the touring musicians, with another guitarist, good friend Mike Campbell, who's been looking for a new gig since the incomplete tour for _Echo._  
SN: I still have trouble reconciling myself with the fact that Tom (Petty) is no longer among us. Mike is as well. He adds a certain spark, a new flavor. A tribute moment for Tom during each show is very likely.

* * *

“Ex-Sunbeam Executives to Pay $15 Million to Settle a Lawsuit”, by Kenneth N. Gilpin, _The New York Times_ , January 15, 2002  
  
Albert J. Dunlap and other former executives of the Sunbeam Corporation have agreed to pay $15 million to settle a stockholder lawsuit accusing them of inflating stock prices.  
  
Settlement in the class-action case, which was filed on behalf of tens of thousands of Sunbeam shareholders, was reached on Friday. The case had been scheduled to go to trial yesterday.  
  
Private complaints filed by Sunbeam bondholders and a group of Texas investors against Mr. Dunlap, the former chief executive, were also settled. Terms of the settlements reached with those parties were not disclosed.  
  
The shareholder lawsuit accused Sunbeam, the appliance maker, and its officers of misleading investors about the company's sales and earnings in 1997 and 1998.  
  
The lawsuit asserted that Sunbeam used inflated stock prices to complete mergers with a number of companies, including Coleman and First Alert Inc.  
  
Mr. Dunlap became a corporate star in the 1990s, making tens of millions for himself as he laid off employees in the name of efficiency. In the process, he became known as Chainsaw Al.  
  
He was fired as chief executive in 1998 after Sunbeam's stock sank and its sales slumped.  
  
Last year, the Securities and Exchange Commission filed a civil case against Mr. Dunlap and Philip E. Harlow, a partner of Arthur Andersen, the accounting firm that audited Sunbeam's books (as well as recently coming under scrutiny for the collapse of Enron), charging accounting fraud.  
  
Mr. Dunlap has called the SEC charges ''totally false.''  
  
Last July, a few months after the case was filed, The New York Times, citing court records obtained from the National Archives, disclosed that Mr. Dunlap faced similar accusations a quarter of a century ago.  
  
With the settlement of the various shareholder and bondholder complaints, the SEC lawsuit is the most important outstanding action still pending against Mr. Dunlap, lawyers said yesterday.  
  
Frank Razzano, a lawyer who is representing Mr. Dunlap in the SEC lawsuit, said the case was still in the discovery phase, and that a trial was unlikely to begin until some time next year.  
  
In settling the class-action shareholder complaint, Mr. Dunlap did not admit any wrongdoing, his lawyer, Donald Zakarin, said yesterday.  
  
''That is a specific provision of the settlement agreement,'' Mr. Zakarin said.  
  
Robert M. Kornreich, co-lead counsel for the shareholders, emphasized that the settlement reached on Friday was tentative. A hearing on preliminary approval will be held in federal court in West Palm Beach, Florida, in 45 days, he said. The final approval hearing will probably take place about 60 days after that. Though tentative, the settlement ''does dispose of all remaining claims against all individuals, including Mr. Dunlap,'' Mr. Kornreich said.  
  
Mr. Kornreich said Sunbeam shareholders had lost more than $1 billion in the scandal.  
  
Last year Arthur Andersen settled a shareholder lawsuit for $110 million. Sunbeam, which is operating under federal bankruptcy protection, cannot be sued.  
  
A suit filed by Sunbeam bondholders against Arthur Andersen is still pending, Mr. Kornreich said, which would certainly add to the firm’s woes as it is dealing with the fallout of Waste Management and Enron.  
  
If Sunbeam had not filed under Chapter 11, the company ''would have contributed the greatest amount of a settlement,'' Mr. Kornreich said. ''We have gotten blood from the proverbial stone.''  
  
Shareholders may get some additional money from an insurance company that may have insured Sunbeam's officers and directors. Those claims are currently under dispute. Mr. Kornreich declined to identify the insurance company.  
  
In addition to Mr. Dunlap, the Sunbeam executives named in the shareholder complaint were Robert J. Gluck, Sunbeam's former controller, and Donald R. Uzzi, the former marketing vice president.

* * *

"Springbok Hits Jackpot of New Investors," by John Emshwiller, _The Wall Street Journal_ , March 12, 2002

Springbok Productions, coming off a successful first year of releasing projects with the massive critical and commercial praise and profits for _Ghost in the Shell_ and the premier of the animated series _Aqua Teen Hunger Force_ , and the coming of the new live-action TV series _Workshop_ on ABC, has attracted some deep pockets to further capitalize the company. Among the new investors include the likes of hedge fund manager George Soros, legendary investor Warren Buffett, NBA superstar Michael Jordan, media mogul Ted Turner, Limited Brands founder and chair Leslie Wexner, Azure Capital, August Capital, Elevation Partners, TPG Group and Providence Equity Partners. In addition, the company has secured lucrative revolving credit lines and important investing relationships with the likes of General Electric Capital, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Citibank/Citigroup, the Bank of New York, JPMorgan Chase, Toronto-Dominion Bank, HSBC, Rothschild & Co., Societe Generale, Austria's Oesterreichsiche Nationalbank, The State Bank of India, MUFG Bank of Japan, and Australia's Westpac Bank.

In all, this adds more than $11 billion to Springbok's disposal, as equity investments. Clearly the young upstarts, founded by Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain, his second wife, actress Charlize Theron, and CEO Jennifer Todd are on to something, if they are attracting this much faith in their performance after just one year's worth of releases.

Springbok is looking to ramp things up this year with the rollout of their first animated film, Don Bluth's _Dragon's Lair_ ; the comedy _Noble Rot_ , starring Chris Farley and Don Novello and based from a script written by Novello and the late John Belushi; a Disney-distributed adaptation of the novel _Tuck Everlasting_ ; and a big Broadway musical, _Dance of the Vampires_ , by massively successful composer/lyricist and producer Jim Steinman. Furthermore, with the news that All Girls Productions, the company founded by Bette Midler and Bonnie Bruckheimer, would be shutting down this year with the upcoming film _The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood_ being its last project, Springbok has officially hired many of the employees of that company to report to them, adding considerably to its staff.

* * *

“Andersen Misread Depths of the Government’s Anger,” by Kurt Eichenwald, _The New York Times_ , March 18, 2002 **  
  
**Arthur Andersen's pleading phone calls to federal prosecutors started almost immediately.  
  
The accounting firm had just discovered that its Houston office had shredded thousands of documents related to its audits of the Enron Corporation, and its lawyers wanted the government to resolve the case quickly.  
  
Andersen was at a crossroads because of the Enron case, the lawyers explained, and its survival was at stake. The government must act quickly so Andersen could move on.  
  
But things did not work out the way the Andersen lawyers had hoped.  
  
Last week, Andersen became the first major accounting firm ever charged with a felony. The firm, and its lawyers, misread the depths of the government's anger with Andersen in the wake of its flawed audits of other major clients. Earnings restatements by those clients have caused their stock prices to tumble, costing investors tens, if not hundreds, of millions of dollars.  
  
In such cases, Andersen paid a fine and moved on. This time, law enforcement officials wanted to crack down hard.  
  
The prosecutors' zeal for going after Enron appears to be almost matched by their fury at Andersen. In their view, Andersen has minimized the significance of its transgressions - including one from another case that left the firm under an injunction against future misdeeds at the very time the Enron documents were destroyed.  
  
''Obviously,'' said one person involved in the case, ''the question finally came down to, 'How many times do investors have to lose millions of dollars because they relied on Andersen before somebody finally charges them with a crime?' ''  
  
For the government, the outcome will determine the future of its investigation into the collapse of Enron, the energy giant that investigators say used a series of partnerships to make vast overstatements of its profits for years. The prosecutors' decision to bring the first indictment in the Enron case against Andersen signals an aggressive strategy that steps up the pressure on possible witnesses to cut deals.  
  
Now both Andersen and the government find themselves in positions that neither anticipated, involving dangerous gambles for both sides. How did Andersen so badly misread the gravity of the situation? Why did the government decide to risk so much by charging the entire firm for actions that, arguably, were undertaken by a handful of employees, most of them in Houston?  
  
Andersen saw the case as limited to the Enron document destruction, with its past conduct not at issue. It considered the evidence weak and the prosecutors' interpretation of the law wrong. Faced with the prospect that a guilty plea would put it out of business, the firm chose a criminal trial, the first major corporation to do so in recent years.  
  
Andersen has seen the case transformed from a business problem to a crisis of historic proportions. The government now faces an angry corporate adversary rumbling with demands for a rapid trial, which could hinder the prosecutors' ability to develop essential evidence.  
  
The standoff with Andersen followed months of behind-the-scenes battles and decisions that inexorably set both sides on the path toward an all-out legal war.  
  
Of particular importance in this case was a series of actions and decisions reached years ago, in another accounting scandal involving an Andersen client named Waste Management.  
  
Forced into a settlement in that case with the Securities and Exchange Commission because of evidence culled from its own files, Andersen adopted a perfectly legal policy of shredding most records as they became unnecessary.  
  
Then, in a stunning blunder meant to save money, it cut back on the staff responsible for actually destroying the records -- leaving huge piles of Enron documents sitting in Andersen offices around the world as Enron hobbled toward collapse.  
  
''It's pretty hard to overstate the importance of the Waste Management case in all of this,'' one person involved in the case said of the Andersen indictment. ''It's at the center of everything that's happened.''  
  
In the end, prosecutors resolved that Andersen should pay a price for its past problems. Its history proved to be the critical factor in their decision to indict the firm -- even if the charge amounted to a death sentence.  
  
Details of the events and discussions that led to the Andersen indictment come from internal company documents, lawyers' letters, court records, filings with the SEC, the depositions of a number of principals and interviews with people involved in the case.  
  
A Policy Begins  
  
It was the documents, regulators said, that ultimately made the case against Andersen. If the firm's partners had simply disposed of the records in the Waste Management matter, the fraud case against Andersen might never have been brought.  
  
The securities commission's investigation into accounting fraud at Waste Management began in 1998, after the company announced that four years of its pretax profit reports had been inflated by $1.4 billion. At the time, it was the largest earnings restatement in American history.  
  
Andersen had worked for Waste Management for decades. The Waste Management problems were evident, according to a later SEC complaint. For each year in question, Andersen quantified the misstatements and identified other accounting problems. The auditors discussed the improper accounting among themselves and with their superiors and devised ''action plans'' for forcing Waste Management to comply with accepted accounting practices. But each year, Waste Management refused, and Andersen signed off on its misleading filings. After the restatements were announced, the commission demanded Andersen's internal records, which proved that Andersen knew of the problems.  
  
In 2000, as the SEC pored through Andersen's documents, the firm assigned Richard Kutsenda, a partner, to review its policies on document retention. The SEC later said that Mr. Kutsenda had engaged in ''highly unreasonable conduct'' in the Waste Management case and sanctioned him.  
  
The new rules were sent via email to every Andersen employee that May. They required employees to preserve audit work in a central file, while related documents -- including email, notes and drafts -- were to be destroyed as soon as possible. The problems created by the Waste Management records were never to be repeated.  
  
Then early last year, to cut costs, Andersen dismissed some employees who handled the newly required shredding, and paper began stacking up. By June, accountants handling Enron in Houston were virtually buried in documents that, under the policy, should have been shredded long before.  
  
That same month, on June 19, Andersen finally settled with the securities commission in the Waste Management case. It paid a fine and accepted a judgment that imposed an injunction forbidding the firm from future wrongdoing. Gary B. Goolsby, the partner in charge of global risk management, signed the agreement. He worked in Andersen's Houston office.  
  
Awkward Records  
  
The pile of old memorandums about Enron arrived at Andersen's Chicago headquarters from the Houston office in mid-September. A group of the firm's top audit specialists, who wanted to review their old work, pored through the papers and were aghast: The memorandums indicated -- incorrectly, in the specialists' eyes -- that they had approved certain Enron accounting decisions that had since proved to be horribly wrong.  
  
By then, Andersen was seeing the first signs of the accounting scandal about to envelop Enron.  
  
For years, Enron had been using a collection of partnerships to move debt off its books and improve earnings. But beginning in August, the accountants recognized mistakes that led Enron to overstate its shareholders equity by $1.2 billion.  
  
Now these memorandums from Houston seemed to say that Andersen's Chicago office had approved the mistakes. After Waste Management, that was a disaster: a bunch of inaccurate memorandums might be used to trace the blunders once again back to Chicago. The two sets of auditors debated in almost daily conference calls how to correct the memos.  
  
They were joined by Nancy Temple, a lawyer at the firm, who reminded everyone about Andersen's policy on destroying unnecessary records. In another discussion, Mr. Goolsby made the same point.  
  
Urged to comply with the document destruction policy, senior auditors in Chicago began deleting old email related to Enron by the second week of October.  
  
In Houston on October 10, Michael C. Odom, Andersen's practice director there, stood in a conference room to remind his accountants about the importance of destroying documents. According to an investigation by Andersen's lawyers, Mr. Odom explained that in past lawsuits, Andersen had been forced to produce documents that should not have been retained.  
  
''If documents are destroyed and litigation is filed the next day, that's great,'' Mr. Odom told the crowd. ''We've followed our own policy, and whatever there was that might have been of interest to somebody is gone and irretrievable.''  
  
The message had its effect. Andersen personnel headed back to their desks, and some employees began deleting an unusually large number of email messages, computer records show. The government said in its indictment that the document destruction that day had been the first attempt to obstruct justice.  
  
In that same week, on October 12, Ms. Temple sent an email message to the Enron team suggesting changes to a draft memorandum about the problems with the Raptor partnership. Forty minutes later, she sent a second email message to Mr. Odom, again nudging him about Andersen's rules on destroying documents.  
  
''It might be useful to consider reminding the engagement team of our documentation and retention policy,'' she wrote, adding that it would ''be helpful to make sure that we have complied with the policy.''  
  
Mr. Odom forwarded the email message to David B. Duncan, head of the Enron team. Mr. Duncan had little time to do anything about it.  
  
In that week, the Enron situation exploded. On October 15, the company announced that it was deducting $1 billion from its third-quarter earnings, producing its first quarterly loss in more than four years. Millions of dollars of those losses were soon attributed to Enron's dealings with a group of partnerships controlled by its chief financial officer, Andrew S. Fastow.  
  
Over in Fort Worth, the regulators in the regional office of the SEC watched the developments with amazement. Investigators sent Enron a letter, asking for documents to aid a preliminary inquiry.  
  
Andersen auditors learned of the commission's inquiry that same week. But on October 22, the news became worse.  
  
Mr. Duncan and another auditor heard from Enron officials that a further letter from the commission was imminent, this time requesting accounting information.  
  
The shredding at Andersen began in earnest the next morning.  
  
Worry About Litigation  
  
David Duncan stepped out of his 37th-floor office at Three Allen Center to ask his executive assistant, Shannon Adlong, for a favor. The Enron team needed to attend a meeting at 1:30. Could she let everyone know about it?  
  
Ms. Adlong agreed, sending email notes, labeled ''Urgent,'' to partners around the office.  
  
The accountants heard the same message repeatedly that day: Get the files into compliance with Andersen's document retention policy. Notes taken at the meetings show that the SEC inquiry was cited.  
  
Documents arrived in the shredding room in scores of trunks and boxes. The machines were relatively small so secretaries waited in a long line.  
  
Frustrated, they hired a courier and started shipping trunks and boxes to Andersen's main Houston office, about six blocks away. Between 20 and 30 trunks of documents were shipped over and stacked inside the shredding room and out in the hallway.  
  
The sudden increase in the demand for shredding attracted attention there. Mike Luna, a facilities manager at Andersen, bumped into Sharon Thibault, who reviewed documents before they were shredded, that week. She was going through a large number of boxes from the Enron team, she said. Days later, the two met again and discussed all the news about Enron's troubles. ''Well, maybe that's why they sent over some shredding,'' Mr. Luna, in a deposition, recalled Ms. Thibault as saying. ''Maybe they are cleaning up the office.''  
  
In other offices, the same cleanup was under way. On October 23, Houston partners called the head of the London office. Shortly afterward, instructions went out in London to destroy unnecessary documents.  
  
The same message was sent by voicemail to a manager in the Portland, Oregon, office, which had also done work on Enron. The next day, the manager sent email to Houston to let the partners there know that he had destroyed his Enron records.  
  
By October 26, shredding in Houston was brisk. In three days, 26 trunks of documents, as well as 24 boxes, were shredded -- compared with less than one trunk's worth being shredded in each of the prior three weeks. Simultaneously, there was a threefold increase in the volume of email deletions.  
  
The shredding finally ended on November 9, when Mr. Duncan was notified that Andersen had received an SEC subpoena. Mr. Duncan told his secretary to let everyone know. She sent out an email notice quickly, telling employees to stop the shredding.  
  
In the weeks that followed, Enron spiraled into bankruptcy, and prosecutors opened a criminal inquiry. By that time, Andersen officials in Chicago had learned of the full scope of what had happened in Houston during the fall, and they began an internal inquiry.  
  
When Ms. Adlong spoke with Mr. Duncan before his January 15 dismissal, he said he wished that he had never received the October 12 email message about complying with the document policy. Without it, he said, nothing would have happened.  
  
Andersen disclosed the document destruction on January 10. Mr. Luna, the facilities manager, sought out D. Stephen Goddard Jr., the managing partner in Houston, to recount everything he had heard back in October. Mr. Goddard listened, saying nothing until Mr. Luna finished.  
  
'I don't know,'' Mr. Goddard finally said, seeming to answer a question that had not been asked.  
  
Then he left the room.  
  
Shredding in Earnest  
  
At the Justice Department, the pressure to show quick results in the Enron case started in January, soon after the appointment of a special task force. Senior officials and even the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation were pushing. In most complex corporate fraud investigations, involving millions of documents, such a demand would be impossible to meet. But word of the possible obstruction of justice at Andersen gave prosecutors a manageable case.  
  
With demands from Andersen to resolve the matter soon, everything moved quickly. A Houston grand jury was empaneled, with streamlined procedures.  
  
Instead of hearing from dozens of witnesses, the grand jury would get much of the detail from FBI agents.  
  
In February, prosecutors met with Andersen's lawyers and executives. Repeatedly, Andersen portrayed the events as limited, caused by a handful of Houston executives acting without Chicago's knowledge. The Andersen lawyers disputed the contention that any crimes had occurred, but they felt confident that if prosecutors disagreed, only individuals would face indictment.  
  
But Andersen failed to see that the task force was turning against it, becoming convinced that the firm was a recidivist. Just a quick background check had uncovered recent accounting frauds at a number of Andersen clients, including Colonial Realty in Connecticut, the Sunbeam Corporation and even a nonprofit organization, the Baptist Foundation of Arizona. In those cases, investors and others who believed records certified by Andersen lost tens, if not hundreds, of millions of dollars. In each case, regulators and law enforcement officials had developed evidence that Andersen was, in part, responsible for the financial disasters.  
  
Capping it all off was Waste Management. In that case, Andersen had signed an agreement to avoid wrongdoing. Then came the document destruction.  
  
As members of the Enron prosecutorial team discussed it, they decided that, given Andersen's record, they had no choice but to indict. They worried that if they gave it a pass, future injunctions in SEC cases would be meaningless.  
  
In early March, Andersen lawyers from Davis, Polk & Wardwell were flabbergasted to hear from prosecutors that the firm faced indictment in as little as a week. The lawyers argued that the case had no merit and that there was no rational reason to charge the firm for the actions of a few. But prosecutors kept returning to Andersen's history, and the Waste Management case.  
  
Late that week, the lawyers from Davis, Polk & Wardwell stepped aside in the negotiations, replaced by a team from Mayer, Brown, Rowe & Maw. The new lawyers wanted more time, implying that the deadline needed to be stretched; incredulous, the prosecutors refused.  
  
The prosecutors pushed Andersen to plead guilty. If the firm did not agree to do so by 9 AM on March 14, the charges, already filed and under seal, would be opened. As far as Andersen's lawyers were concerned, that deal carried the death penalty as punishment. Under securities rules, Andersen would then no longer be able to represent public companies in America.  
  
Andersen pushed for a government assurance that the rule would be waived but did not get a satisfactory answer. Angered, its lawyers asked Larry Thompson, the deputy attorney general, to intervene. Mr. Thompson refused, sending the lawyers back to Michael Chertoff, the chief of the criminal division.  
  
''The demand for a plea left us in a Catch-22 position,'' one member of the legal team said. ''Without an assurance of a waiver, we were committing suicide. Getting indicted had a lower risk.''  
  
Sometime after 7 on the evening of March 13 -- a little more than 12 hours before the deadline ran out -- Richard J. Favretto, a lawyer for Andersen, telephoned the task force chief with news that there would be no plea. If the government wanted a conviction, it would have to come at trial.  
  
The next afternoon, after the close of the financial markets, Mr. Thompson appeared with Mr. Chertoff and other members of the prosecutorial team to announce the indictment. Within minutes, Andersen fired back, accusing the prosecutors of ''a gross abuse of government power.''  
  
The first hearing of a case that was supposed to have been resolved quickly will take place in a Houston courtroom on Wednesday. Absent a resolution, one side stands to lose far more than a verdict.

* * *

"AOL to Take a $54 Billion Writedown," by Sallie Hofmeister, _Los Angeles Times_ , March 26, 2002

AOL Time Warner Inc. will take a record $54-billion writedown in the first quarter to reflect a steep decline in the value of assets acquired last year when the leading Internet service provider bought the world’s largest entertainment company.

The company, whose stock has declined nearly 50% in the last year, warned Wall Street in January that it would take a noncash charge against earnings of $40 billion to $60 billion because of new accounting rules governing merger deals.

AOL Time Warner’s write-off, disclosed in a filing Monday with the Securities and Exchange Commission, is the largest in corporate history, surpassing telecom equipment firm JDS Uniphase Corp.'s record $50.1-billion charge in fiscal 2001.

Analysts weren’t surprised that AOL Time Warner’s charge was at the high end of the range the company had given, in light of the firm’s lower-than-expected earnings over the last year. Earnings suffered amid an advertising slump and a slowdown at the America Online Internet service.

AOL shares closed Monday at $24.21, down 29 cents, on the New York Stock Exchange. The stock is down 25% since January 1.

The write-off is a reflection of the reversal in sentiment toward the Internet sector and the dramatic downturn in its value over the last two years. When America Online announced the merger with Time Warner in January 2000, the companies were worth $290 billion combined, compared with $126 billion when the acquisition was completed a year later and $111 billion today.

New U.S. accounting rules require companies to quickly account for the “impairment” of assets acquired in mergers.

In a takeover, the price a company pays above the market value of the target’s assets is carried as “goodwill” on the balance sheet. Under the new rules, that goodwill must be adjusted if the company believes the asset values are worth substantially less.

The adjustment is taken in the form of a one-time write-off that amounts to a balance-sheet change, but doesn’t affect the company’s basic operations.

A number of technology companies have recorded or are expected to record large goodwill write-offs as a result of the change in accounting rules.

In the filing Monday, AOL Time Warner also said discussions with its cable partner, Advance/Newhouse, could lead to a restructuring of the joint venture at the end of the month. Advance/Newhouse contributed about 7 million of the joint venture’s 12.8 million cable subscribers.

Advance/Newhouse has the ability to pull its assets out of the partnership at the end of the month, which would reduce AOL from the nation’s second-largest cable operator to the sixth-ranked.

The possible cable restructuring is just the latest in a series of setbacks since the AOL Time Warner merger was initiated in January 2000. Among the biggest challenges is the poor performance of America Online, which was pitched to investors as the growth engine of the new company.

But the Internet service provider is instead the poorest performer in the company, with growth in operating income expected to drop to 10% this year, down from 76% in 2000, according to a Merrill Lynch research report.

Lehman Bros., which expects growth to slow even more, reports the AOL division is being hurt by a combination of factors, including management turnover, a slump in advertising and the difficulty of keeping customers paying full rates for its service. Many investors say AOL is heavily discounting its service or giving it away for free to keep subscribers from terminating.

AOL Time Warner is expected to earn 15 cents a share, excluding certain expenses, in the first quarter, according to the average estimate of analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial/First Call. In the year-earlier period, the company earned 23 cents a share before expenses such as amortization.

According to the company’s filing Monday, AOL repurchased about 20.4 million shares of its common stock for about $733 million during the fourth quarter of 2001.

The purchases fall under a buyback program authorized in January that calls for the company to repurchase common shares from time to time for up to $5 billion over a two-year period.

As of December 31, 2001, AOL Time Warner had repurchased 75.8 million shares for $3.03 billion.

In an effort to maintain financial flexibility and investment capacity, the pace of share repurchases under this program may decrease in 2002, the filing said.

The company paid an average of $39.99 a share for the stock.

As of February 28, the company had about 4.3 billion common shares outstanding.

* * *

"$1.7 Billion Trash Heap-Waste Management Inflated Profits: SEC," by Paul Tharp, _The New York Post_ , March 27, 2002

Garbage giant Waste Management’s founder and his top aides were charged yesterday with cooking the books to inflate profits by $1.7 billion. The Securities and Exchange Commission accused the former executive team of staging a “massive fraud” for five straight years – with help from its auditor Arthur Andersen – in order to meet earnings targets and reap bonuses, among other benefits. The SEC said founder and former Chairman Dean Buntrock, his former Chief Financial Officer James Koenig and three other former executives falsified company results between 1992 and 1997.

“It is one of the most egregious accounting frauds we have seen,” said SEC attorney Thomas Newkirk. Waste Management wasn’t charged in the fraud, and only its predecessor company was at the center of the alleged scam. Separately, Waste Management had fired Andersen just last week to distance itself from the auditor’s indictment and role in the Enron-collapse scandal.

The alleged accounting scandal at Waste Management, and Andersen’s role in helping create phony ledgers, have been under investigation by regulators for four years. Andersen has already paid the SEC a $7 million civil fine over the scam – the largest ever imposed on an accounting firm by the SEC – and Waste Management paid $457 million last year to settle a class-action over the cooked books. The alleged fraud came to light five years ago after a new CEO ordered a review of financial records. As a result, Waste Management restated its earnings for 1992 through 1997 by $1.7 billion – the largest restatement in corporate history, the SEC said. Investors lost $6 billion when the company’s stock crashed from the restated earnings.

Buntrock and his group at Waste Management were “driven by greed and a desire to retain their corporate positions and status in the business and social communities,” said the SEC’s Newkirk. “For years, these defendants cooked the books, enriched themselves, preserved their jobs and duped unsuspecting shareholders.”

Waste Management said the SEC case involves the “old” Waste Management, which merged with USA Waste Services in 1998. “We have cooperated fully with the SEC in this investigation,” said Waste Management spokesperson Sarah Voss. The SEC said Andersen helped Waste Management’s former executives find 32 “must-do” steps to cover up cooked books.

Down in the dumps

The Securities and Exchange Commission yesterday slapped six former Waste Management execs wth a massive civil-fraud suit. What they accused the trash haulers of doing:

* Inflating profits by $1.7 billion

* Failing to report expenses on the financial statements and postponing costs from 1992 to 1997

* Filing false accounts with the help of auditor Arthur Andersen

* Illegally pocketing $28.5 million from the scheme

* * *

"Disney Channel to Introduce Anime Block in 2003", Anime News Network, April 7, 2002  
  
 _Disney to begin airing anime in 2003._  
  
Over the last few years Cable TV has changed due in part to the Anime Boom of the late '90s with Cartoon Network's Toonami block reaching millions of households, many other networks have been trying to compete with their own anime programming blocks and have failed. But now The Walt Disney Company has decided to throw its mouse eared hat into the ring; starting in 2003 Disney will begin broadcasting Japanese anime on its flagship Disney Channel. Disney already has some major stakes in the world of anime dubbing with its major partnership with Studio Ghibli which has released anime classics in the West like _Kiki's Delivery Service_ , _Princess Mononoke_ , and most recently _Spirited Away_. Also Disney's acquisition of Saban Entertainment in July of last year (as part of the acquisition of Fox Family Entertainment, which also led to the end of the Fox Kids programming block and the creation of ABC Family) gave them access to the anime series _Digimon,_ whose 4th series _Digimon Frontier_ is scheduled to begin airing on Disney Channel's new block later next year. At the moment not much is known about the block other than that it will contain English licensed content from not only Disney's Saban but also content from Viz Media and Ocean Group, who have agreed to air their content on there. It is also being reported that Disney is looking to dub anime themselves and are looking to start up their own in house dubbing studio. We will report on any updates as they come through.  
  
Update: It has been confirmed that one of the other anime series that will be on the new block will be an anime series based on the Lego toyline Bionicle that will be produced by Production I.G. and licensed out to Disney through Disney-ABC Domestic Television and Buena Vista Home Entertainment.

* * *

"Opinion Piece: Has Anime Finally Hit the Mainstream?", Anime News Network, April 28, 2002  
  
At this point in time, it seems like the anime and manga industry is finally making significant inroads to mass acceptance in North America and the rest of the West. Cartoon Network’s anime programming block Toonami, known for showing the likes of _DragonBall Z_ and _Sailor Moon_ , the recent new English dub of _Akira_ by Pioneer, the sales of Squaresoft’s _Final Fantasy_ video game series since the paradigm-shifting release of _Final Fantasy VII_ five years ago, and the Kids’ WB programming block airing the anime adaptations of _Pokemon_ and _Yu-Gi-Oh!_ have already done much in that regard. But now, with Disney doubling down on their anime ties (having made a longterm distribution deal for English dubs of the filmography of Studio Ghibli and partnering with Squaresoft for the new video game _Kingdom Hearts_ ) by announcing a programming block of their own and Springbok Productions, the new production company founded by Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain and his wife, actress Charlize Theron, having scored a major success with its debut film, a live-action adaptation of _Ghost in the Shell_ , it seems like anime may take hold like never before.  
  
This seems to be a major turning point, whereby anime suddenly becomes accepted by the public at large and admired in the same degree and analysis Western animation has had for decades. We could very well see a point where anime is embraced by the general public and becoming a true crossover success. If so, this is a whole new world for not just the fandom, but for the entire world as a whole. One can only wait and see.

* * *

"World Trade Center Rebuilding Plans Approved," by Charles V. Bagli, _The New York Times_ , May 4, 2002

Today, New York Governor George Pataki, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, real estate mogul Larry Silverstein, mall retail owner Westfield America, and architect Daniel Pipski officially approved the rebuilding plans for the World Trade Center complex in order to begin the process of recovering after the September 11 attacks. After doing a contest to determine the potential winner, a very simple plan, entitled "Twin Towers 2", was selected as the basis for the new, rebuilt World Trade Center.

As the name suggests, the plan calls for the rebuilding of the iconic Twin Towers, albeit differently than before. The towers will both stand at 1776 feet tall, as an obvious symbolic gesture for America, and thus have more than 110 floors. The towers will also be connected by skybridges on the 55th and 110th floors, and built with more durable, fireproof materials to withstand fire from jet fuel. Most of the complex will resemble what came before, however there will be definite changes. Notable, the Marriott World Trade Center hotel and 7 World Trade Center buildings will not be rebuilt, instead a National September 11 Memorial and Museum and a performing arts center will be built. A park and greenery area including a wall of the names of the victims will be installed. To make room for all this, the shopping mall concourse, to be called Westfield Shoppingtown World Trade Center, will be made to have half the footprint of the original mall, though now it will be double-leveled. The process will take a lengthy time to finish, but the rebuilt Twin Towers 2 and the mall are expected to be online by the fifth anniversary of the attacks.

"What better way to demonstrate the resilience of America and New York by rebuilding the World Trade Center, and demonstrating that the iconic look of the complex simply cannot be held down," Mr. Silverstein said. "I bought the lease for the World Trade Center for the Twin Towers, and to have them back would do a world of good to the Big Apple. But we also will not be crass and exploitative, instead we will always show the utmost respect for the victims of that awful, awful day, and how we are moving to bounce back from that."

"Taking charge of the World Trade Center is a solemn endeavor, but also awe-inspiring," Mr. Pipski stated. "Helping bring a New York landmark back to life in as incredible a degree as possible is my greatest honor. I hope to bring the right tone and glory to this project."

For the moment, tenants are in no hurry to start lining up to sign leases to return to the site, but that may hopefully change in time.

* * *

"World Wrestling Federation Entertainment Drops the 'F!'", BusinessWire, May 6, 2002

STAMFORD, CT- To further capture a greater share of the global marketplace and to represent the growing diversity of its entertainment properties, World Wrestling Federation Entertainment today announced it is changing its name to World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc. (WWE). The company's website, one of the most popular in the world, will now be found at WWE.com. 

A new logo reflecting the name change will be introduced tonight on WWE's top-rated television show _RAW_ on TNN at 9 p.m. (ET).

"As World Wrestling Federation Entertainment, we have entertained millions of fans around the United States and around the globe," said Linda McMahon, CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment. "Our new name puts the emphasis on the "E" for entertainment, what our company does best. WWE provides us with a global identity that is distinct and unencumbered, which is critical to our U.S. and international growth plans."

Mrs. McMahon said the company began considering dropping the word "Federation" from its name when World Wildlife Fund (a/k/a World Wide Fund for Nature) prevailed in a recent court action in the United Kingdom. The court ruling prevents the World Wrestling Federation from the use of the logo it adopted in 1998 and the letters WWF in specified circumstances. The "Fund" has indicated that although the two organizations are very different, there is the likelihood of confusion in the market place by virtue of the fact that both organizations use the letters WWF. The Fund has indicated that it does not want to have any association with the World Wrestling Federation. "Therefore," said, Mrs.McMahon, "we will utilize this opportunity to position ourselves emphasizing the entertainment aspect of our company, and, at the same time, allay the concerns of the Fund."

Mrs. McMahon said the name change provides a distinct and unencumbered global identity that will further cast World Wrestling Entertainment as an integrated entertainment and media company. "World Wrestling Entertainment and WWE will now be the identity that we use from the television base we have established in 130 countries," she said. "As WWE, we will launch our further expanded U.S. and international touring, our international expansion of branded merchandise and licensed products, and our further integration into the film, publishing and music businesses." 

The successful development of the _Tough Enough_ television series on MTV, a new book deal with Simon and Schuster, and the hit motion picture, _The Scorpion King_ , executive produced by WWE Chairman Vince McMahon and WWE, are examples of the types of activities the company plans to undertake as it expand its horizons in the global entertainment industry.

New logo art has been provided to business partners, licensees and vendors. The company expects that, for the most part, the changeover to the new name and logo will be completed within five months.

WWE will continue to trade as WWF on the New York Stock Exchange until a suitable replacement symbol is found. The company will be providing the appropriate documentation and filings with regulators to solicit shareholder approval of the name change.

In conjunction with the name change, WWE announced it has changed the name of its entertainment complex in New York City's Times Square from WWF New York to The World, currently the name of its popular night club.

World Wrestling Entertainment (NYSE: WWF) is an integrated media and entertainment company headquartered in Stamford, Connecticut, with offices in New York City, Chicago, Toronto and London. Additional information on the company can be found at wwe.com and wwecorpbiz.com. Information on television ratings and community activities can be found at wweparents.com.

* * *

“Missteps, Miscues and the Fall of Andersen,” by Kurt Eichenwald, _The New York Times_ , May 8, 2002 **  
  
**From the moment in January when Arthur Andersen's lawyers discovered that email messages about Enron were missing - thousands of them, from computer after computer in Andersen's office here - the accounting firm began grasping at straws.  
  
Andersen and its lawyers sought the counsel of an outsider of impeccable credentials, hiring John C. Danforth, the former United States senator from Missouri and an Episcopal minister, but quarreled over how much authority to give him.  
  
The firm's chief executive, looking to replace Andersen's inbred board with top-flight outsiders, met with Gen. P.X. Kelley, a former Marine Corps commandant, but the general never offered to play an active role. Nor could Andersen win a commitment from Arthur Levitt, the former chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, whose effort to impose restrictions on accountants had been bitterly resisted by Andersen and other firms.  
  
Finally, Andersen succeeded in enlisting Paul A. Volcker, a former chairman of the Federal Reserve, who agreed to lead an overhaul of Andersen on the condition that he be granted extraordinary powers over the partnership. That promise was made, but Mr. Volcker's plan was stillborn.  
  
Even as Andersen's case plays out in a Houston court, the global firm, long a force in the capital markets, is all but dead. Hundreds of clients have fired Andersen, dozens of foreign affiliates have defected, and the scraps of its revenues are being coveted by lawyers who blame Andersen's audits of Enron for helping mislead investors who lost billions of dollars.  
  
''We've missed an opportunity of having an accounting firm of some weight doing auditing the way it seems to me it should be done,'' said Mr. Volcker, who suspended his work for the firm last week. ''Andersen now is a very lame horse, a lame horse that got shot in the head.''  
  
The evaporation of a partnership that began the year as a $9 billion enterprise was the consequence of behind-the-scenes decisions by Andersen and the government, many of them never publicly revealed. Near misses and blunders on both sides left the firm severely damaged, not by the tides of the markets, but by the tarnishing of its reputation. Details of Andersen's unraveling were pieced together from internal records, court documents, letters, Congressional testimony and interviews with current and former executives, government officials and lawyers involved.  
  
Time and again, this information shows, the firm made missteps that left prosecutors questioning its desire to resolve the case. Its efforts at internal change went nowhere, as the partnership spun into chaos. When its lawyers suggested that Andersen consider pleading guilty, the firm's management replaced them. Decision making at the firm, meanwhile, was hampered by squabbles among the foreign offices, which often argued -- incorrectly, as it turned out -- that the Enron problem in the United States was not an issue that need concern them.  
  
At the same time, Andersen faced an unusually aggressive effort by prosecutors to indict the partnership, one that several legal experts found surprising, and potentially damaging to future law enforcement efforts, given that the firm had turned itself in.  
  
There were close calls, where the firm and the government seemed on the verge of a deal. In one instance, the two sides seemed close to an agreement, just hours before the chief partner involved in the document destruction decided to plead guilty and cooperate against the firm. The government, in turn, toughened its position.  
  
In some ways, Andersen was in the wrong place at the wrong time. The Enron scandal had been roaring for months, with its confusing amalgam of accounting issues involving such arcane concepts as special-purpose entities and revenue recognition. Senior law enforcement officials were pushing for indictments, but the financial machinations at Enron would take months, if not years, to unravel.  
  
Document destruction, though, was as simple to understand as mark-to-market accounting was complex. The possibility of an obstruction of justice case was an enormous break for investigators, giving them the ability to carve off a part of the Enron scandal and bring a significant charge.  
  
Missing Messages in Houston  
  
The call came from Houston on January 3. Lawyers for Andersen had fired up the laptops in the firm's office there, searching for email files to help prepare partners for Congressional testimony about Enron.  
  
But the records - the kind of documents that government investigators wanted - had simply vanished, according to people who worked with Andersen. So the lawyers quickly telephoned Andrew J. Pincus, the firm's general counsel, and just as quickly, Mr. Pincus phoned Joseph F. Berardino, the chief executive of the worldwide Andersen firm.  
  
The message from Mr. Pincus was simple, people at the firm said: Andersen had a problem. With Enron having collapsed a month before, Andersen was already in the government's cross hairs. If the missing records were part of some scheme, Andersen had a big problem.  
  
The next morning, the news was worse. On an 8 AM conference call, Mr. Pincus laid out details of a series of interviews that had been conducted with employees in Houston, according to participants in the call. The email deletions had been on a scale that was both abnormal and suspicious, he said, and there seemed to have been documents shredded as well. The panic within Andersen intensified. Some partners argued that the firm had about five days to put the matter behind it, by conducting interviews in Houston day and night; otherwise, one partner told others in the strategy sessions, ''We're dead.''  
  
As Andersen's legal team - including Mr. Pincus and lawyers from two prominent firms, Davis Polk & Wardwell of New York and Mayer, Brown, Rowe & Maw of Chicago - traded calls that day, the firm and its lawyers decided that the government needed to be told quickly of what they had learned.  
  
Other steps were proposed to help salvage the firm, like hiring Mr. Danforth, the former senator. But the lawyers could not agree on his mission.  
  
Some pushed for him to be given the authority to conduct a complete investigation into the destruction and make whatever recommendations he deemed necessary. Others worried that Mr. Danforth's work might not be privileged, meaning that it might have to be turned over to plaintiffs in any ensuing lawsuit. Ultimately, the lawyers and firm management decided to limit Mr. Danforth's role to conducting a review of Andersen's document policies.  
  
By Monday, January 7, Andersen was facing some tight deadlines. The firm knew that David B. Duncan, the firm's lead auditor on the Enron account, was meeting in a matter of days with investigators from the SEC. Mr. Duncan had to be informed that the government was being told about the document destruction; no one wanted to risk the chance that he might try to hide it.  
  
After three more days of investigation, the firm was ready to disclose its findings publicly. Officials with the SEC, the Justice Department and Congress were notified first, and then, on the afternoon of January 10, Andersen issued a news release saying that members of the Houston office had destroyed ''a significant but undetermined number'' of documents related to Enron.  
  
A firestorm ensued. Clients who had been sitting on the fence since the Enron scandal began started letting Andersen partners know that their suspicions were heightened by the disclosures, rather than being assuaged by the firm's openness. If Andersen had nothing to hide, they reasoned, why would partners be hiding things?  
  
Mr. Duncan flew to New York and appeared at the offices of his lawyers at Sullivan & Cromwell. There, according to people involved, he was interviewed by phone for less than 20 minutes by Andersen's lawyers, in a conversation short on the kind of detail that the firm might need should it face indictment. Days later, on January 14, Andersen announced that it was firing Mr. Duncan for his role in the document destruction. The firm's lawyers would never again follow up on that initial, brief interview.  
  
A Search for Credibility  
  
They held their secret meeting at a suite in a Marriott hotel in Miami - Mr. Berardino, the chief executive on the spot, and General Kelley, the retired military man whose credibility might help remove some of the tarnish from Andersen's name.  
  
For months, according to people at Andersen, Mr. Berardino had been considering an overhaul of the firm's unwieldy corporate structure. For too long, its board had been an anomaly in the corporate world, composed of midlevel Andersen managers, few of whom knew much about running a multinational business. With the document scandal, Mr. Berardino resolved that Andersen needed to set up an independent board, as a sign that it was prepared to police itself.  
  
On the recommendation of a few people he trusted, Mr. Berardino decided to bounce the idea off General Kelley, who is now a partner at J.F. Lehman, an equity firm in New York, and serves on several corporate boards. Perhaps the general himself would be willing to consider a spot on the board. Little was resolved, according to people at the firm, but the two men kicked around names of people who might serve on the board. Someone floated the name of Mr. Volcker, a man who dripped integrity and credibility.  
  
Mr. Berardino continued to press his plan, people at Andersen said. He telephoned Harvey L. Pitt, the SEC chairman, to gauge his opinion. He met at Dulles Airport in Washington with Arthur Levitt, who as Mr. Pitt's predecessor at the agency had spearheaded a failed effort to reform the accounting industry. Mr. Levitt made it clear that while he liked the idea of the board, he would not serve on it; instead, Mr. Berardino was again encouraged to call Mr. Volcker.  
  
On January 29, Mr. Berardino dropped by the Manhattan office of the former Fed chairman. Mr. Volcker told him that if he was to become involved, he would insist on the power to dictate changes in the way the firm did business. Mr. Volcker prepared a letter detailing his conditions, and, on February 2, Mr. Berardino agreed to them.  
  
That was the long-term plan. In the short term, Andersen's lawyers were trying to resolve civil suits from the Enron debacle that threatened to sink the firm. With the chaos caused by the document scandal, they figured, Andersen needed to settle, fast.  
  
On February 4, Andersen hired Scott Bok, a managing partner of Greenhill & Company, an investment banking firm, to prepare a financial analysis demonstrating how much money Andersen could afford to pay to plaintiffs. Mr. Bok finished his review, and in mid-February, he and lawyers for the firm began presenting their findings to the SEC, creditors of Enron and lawyers representing plaintiffs damaged in the Enron collapse.  
  
All told, they reported, Andersen could pay $750 million, with much of the money coming from future earnings. The SEC and the creditors seemed impressed. But, according to people involved, William S. Lerach, whose firm would soon be appointed as lead counsel in the Enron litigation, said that the number was not big enough. He was expecting a settlement in excess of $1 billion.  
  
Still, the talks were encouraging enough that Andersen's lawyers began to express hope that there was a good chance the civil problems were coming under control.  
  
On February 18, lawyers from Davis Polk & Wardwell updated Andersen's board, offering assurances that the firm had little to worry about from the Justice Department. The lawyers planned to make a presentation that week to prosecutors, letting them know of Andersen's precarious financial position. Having turned itself in, the lawyers told the board, Andersen was sure to be safe from charges, given the limited facts. Some board members said later that they were impressed that lawyers were willing to take such a strong stance.  
  
Late that month, Mr. Berardino traveled to Asia to visit some Andersen offices and clients. In Japan, he gained a strong understanding of just how precarious the firm's position was, Andersen officials said. The Japanese auditors were terrified; they had seen Mr. Berardino on television testifying before Congress on Enron, and some were convinced that he was personally on trial. They were afraid for the future of the firm. Mr. Berardino assured the auditors that Andersen had nothing to fear from Congress; the only parts of the government that could hurt the firm, he said, were the SEC and the Justice Department.  
  
After 2 AM on the morning of Saturday, March 2, Mr. Berardino was awakened in his hotel room by the telephone. On the line, according to participants, were Mr. Pincus and several of Andersen's lawyers. The group had just spoken to the Justice Department, and had heard some terrible news.  
  
Andersen was days away from being indicted for obstruction of justice.  
  
Trying to Head Off an Indictment  
  
A crowd gathered the next day in a conference room at Justice Department headquarters in Washington. On one side of the table, according to people who attended the meeting, Michael Chertoff, who heads the criminal division, sat with prosecutors from the Enron task force. Across from them were Andersen's legal and management teams, including Mr. Berardino, who had caught the first flight from Japan.  
  
Robert B. Fiske, Jr., a partner at Davis Polk & Wardwell who served as the original independent counsel in the Whitewater investigation, made the first presentation, participants said. While there was no question that there was inappropriate behavior in the documents matter, Mr. Fiske said, it was committed by individuals, not the firm. An indictment, he said, would be a death blow. Clients would abandon the firm; its business would unwind. Foreign offices would split off.  
  
Mr. Chertoff seemed unconvinced. This incident was not the first, he noted. Andersen had been wrapped in fraud cases involving entities like Sunbeam, Waste Management and the Baptist Foundation of Arizona. A lot of people at the firm could have known about the document destruction, or should have known, had they been exercising appropriate oversight. Topping it all off, he said, the government had concerns that some at Andersen did not appreciate how serious the matter was.  
  
Mr. Berardino replied, saying that Andersen understood the gravity of the acts that had occurred and was prepared to take significant disciplinary action against anyone the government deemed appropriate. But an indictment, or a guilty plea, would kill the firm, he said.  
  
For a second, the room was quiet. ''I'll sleep on it,'' Mr. Chertoff said. But he cautioned that he was still inclined to indict.  
  
After more than an hour and a half, the meeting broke up. The Andersen executives walked away with the impression that their lawyers and the government had been talking past each other for weeks.  
  
By the next morning, the message was clear: the government would file criminal charges, unless Andersen pleaded guilty.  
  
Convinced that the firm was in danger of destruction, Andersen executives said, Mr. Berardino contacted James Copeland, the chief executive of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, another of accounting's Big Five firms. Andersen was in trouble, Mr. Berardino said, and he wanted to know whether Deloitte would be interested in a merger, if it became necessary. Mr. Copeland said he would be eager to hold such discussions.  
  
Scrambling, Andersen tried to go over Mr. Chertoff's head. On March 5, Michael P. Carroll, a lawyer at Davis Polk & Wardwell, sent a letter to Larry Thompson, the deputy attorney general. People who have seen the letter said that it asked for his intervention and described the planned indictment as a ''corporate death penalty'' for Andersen. After spelling out the reasons that the case would be so damaging, Mr. Carroll asked Mr. Thompson to meet with the Andersen team; the request ultimately was rebuffed.  
  
Dismayed, lawyers from Davis Polk & Wardwell appealed to Andersen and Mr. Berardino to consider a plea. The idea was not only rejected, but Davis Polk & Wardwell was replaced as the lead firm on the matter. Mayer, Brown was assigned to deal with the government and told to fight the indictment.  
  
Efforts to Find a Savior Unravel  
  
Its options dwindling, Andersen began merger discussions with Deloitte on Thursday, March 7. The talks seemed to progress well, participants said, but at 9 PM Saturday, Deloitte's representatives said that their lawyers were concerned about liability. Rather than doing a global deal, they said, they wanted to buy various businesses while leaving the American audit business alone. Instead, they would hire whomever they needed and avoid assuming the business's liabilities.  
  
The new proposal was brought to Andersen's board, which was increasingly split. Many members regarded the situation as simply an American problem, one that had no effect on the global firm, and they had little patience for the roiling chaos.  
  
''There was an enormous amount of dissension among the affiliates,'' one person who participated in the meetings said.  
  
Andersen reached out to other accounting firms, and while there were discussions, the talks were as difficult as with Deloitte. At the same time, the firm's client base was rapidly disintegrating; news of the impending indictment had become public, and dozens of clients were abandoning Andersen.  
  
Managing Andersen's troubles had become like playing a multidimensional game of chess. The potential indictment was costing the firm clients. The loss of clients decreased its ability to settle civil litigation. The lack of settlements made it harder to sell the firm. And without a deal, it was impossible for Andersen to consider a plea.  
  
On March 12, a Tuesday, Andersen representatives flew to Oakland to meet with Mr. Lerach, the class-action lawyer. The $750 million offer was off the table, they told him, according to people involved in the talks; with the firm's deteriorating finances, it was down to $350 million. But Mr. Lerach had heard about the possibility of a merger, and he said that he wanted any buyer to kick in more than $1 billion towards a settlement.  
  
The Andersen representatives were stunned; none of the acquirers would be willing to do such a thing. But there would be no acquirers. That same day, Andersen's lucrative Spanish office bolted the global network, cutting a deal with Deloitte and setting off a race for the exits.  
  
Andersen decided to fight. Mayer, Brown told prosecutors that the firm would not accept a deal; the Justice Department announced the indictment on March 14. In response, Andersen called the prosecution abusive. Hundreds of Andersen employees took to the streets in protest. As things spun out of control, among Andersen partners and advisers there was a growing sense that Mr. Berardino had to go, according to people inside the firm. Factions were warring about what steps to take next, and Mr. Berardino was becoming the symbol of Andersen's errant paths.  
  
But on March 26, Mr. Berardino decided to step down, hoping to send a message to prosecutors that the firm was willing to take dramatic action. In the days that followed, despite the saber rattling, a final effort began to settle the criminal case.  
  
By Friday, April 5, Andersen thought it had reached the outline of a deal, with the firm admitting to wrongdoing in exchange for the government's deferring prosecution and placing it on a form of probation. But that plan came apart the next day, when Mr. Duncan - the former Andersen partner who orchestrated the document destruction - agreed to plead guilty to a felony. Now the man whom Andersen had failed to debrief extensively had become the chief witness against the firm.  
  
With the Duncan plea in hand, the prosecutors demanded greater concessions. But the legal team began to sense that prosecutors were angry at Richard J. Favretto, the lead lawyer for Mayer Brown, and apparently held him accountable - incorrectly, Andersen argued - for the protests by Andersen employees and other public relations moves. Mr. Favretto elected to take a behind-the-scenes role, and the job of negotiating a deal was left to Rusty Hardin, Andersen's trial lawyer in Houston, and Denis J. McInerney, a partner with Davis Polk & Wardwell.  
  
On April 17, prosecutors put what they called their final offer on the table. Andersen was told that it had to call the San Francisco office of Leslie Caldwell, the lead task force prosecutor, by 5 PM Pacific time to accept the offer; otherwise it would be withdrawn.  
  
That evening, the firm's management team listened somberly on a conference call as its lawyers spelled out the offer, participants in the call said. A new term had emerged, one that seemed to require the cooperation of certain Andersen partners even after they left the firm. Such a deal would make Andersen auditors virtually radioactive in the industry, participants in the call argued; they could not make a deal that might prevent partners from finding work.  
  
Mr. McInerney called Ms. Caldwell to reject the offer, but she soon returned with a new one: The government would drop the deal-breaking term, if the rest of the settlement was approved by 8:30 Pacific time the next morning.  
  
Andersen's lawyers tried desperately to track down the firm's management team to discuss the offer, but failed to find them. The deadline slipped by, and the government pulled the settlement off the table.  
  
The case against Arthur Andersen, now an echo of what it had been just months before, was headed to trial.

* * *

“Andersen Guilty Of Effort To Block Inquiry On Enron,” by Kurt Eichenwald, _The New York Times_ , June 15, 2002  
  
A federal jury convicted Arthur Andersen today of obstruction of justice for impeding an investigation by securities regulators into the financial debacle at Enron. Soon afterward, Andersen informed the government that it would cease auditing public companies as soon as the end of August, effectively ending the life of the 89-year-old firm.  
  
The jury verdict, reached in the 10th day of deliberations, reflected a narrow reading of the events last fall that led to Andersen's indictment. In interviews, jurors said that they reached their decision because an Andersen lawyer had ordered critical deletions to an internal memorandum, rather than because of the firm's wholesale destruction of Enron-related documents.  
  
At bottom, then, the guilty verdict against Andersen - on a charge brought because of the shredding of thousands of records and deletion of tens of thousands of email messages - was ultimately reached because of the removal of a few words from a single memorandum.  
  
The conviction is the first ever against a major accounting firm and was based on the first criminal indictment stemming from the government's investigation into the events that led to Enron's collapse in December. Sentencing has been scheduled for October 11, and Andersen faces the possibility of fines up to $500,000.  
  
With Andersen already failing, and the firm having given up on its effort to emerge from the scandal as a model for reforming the accounting profession, the most important result of the verdict was that it closed the books on the firm's hopes of surviving even in a reduced state. Within hours of the verdict, the Securities and Exchange Commission issued a statement that Andersen was voluntarily relinquishing its ability to audit public companies in the United States, a privilege that requires authorization to practice before the agency.  
  
''The commission is deeply troubled by the underlying events that resulted in Andersen's conviction, especially insofar as the verdict reflects the jury's conclusion that Andersen engaged in conduct designed to obstruct SEC processes,'' the agency said in its statement. ''In light of the jury verdict and the underlying events, Andersen has informed the commission that it will cease practicing before the commission by August 31, 2002, unless the commission determines another date is appropriate.''  
  
Andersen is already a shell of its former self. The firm has lost 690 of its 2311 public company clients since January 1. It has shrunk from 27,000 employees in the United States to 10,000 at most, between layoffs and the departures of whole offices and practices to competing firms.  
  
Rusty Hardin, Andersen's lead lawyer in the case, said that the firm would appeal the conviction, which would most likely take more than a year to wind its way through the courts, meaning that the outcome would have little effect on Andersen's ability to survive.  
  
The guilty verdict came this morning after a criminal trial of almost six weeks that had frequently been slow and complex, punctuated by sometimes fiery closing arguments from the prosecution and the defense.  
  
Prosecutors, who have been harshly criticized by Andersen and its supporters for bringing a case that crippled the firm, said that the verdict underscored the significance of the crime and provided an important lesson to an accounting industry struggling under the weight of almost daily financial scandals.  
  
''The verdict sends a message out loud and clear to the accounting industry to get their priorities straight,'' said Samuel W. Buell, an assistant United States attorney who was one of the prosecutors. Andersen, Mr. Buell said, was working too hard to protect itself and Enron, its client, without enough attention to the interests of the investing public.  
  
Andrew Weissmann, another lead prosecutor on the case, said the verdict also showed that employees upset about the firm's collapse ''should look to Andersen management'' for responsibility for the debacle. The indictment of Andersen came after the firm or its representatives had already faced litigation from the SEC over accounting failures involving other clients, Waste Management and the Sunbeam Corporation. ''This was a management team that already had two strikes against them,'' Mr. Weissmann said. ''And they refused to take this situation seriously.''  
  
But Andersen and its lawyers reacted to the verdict with strong disappointment, maintaining that the firm never committed a crime in its destruction of Enron documents.  
  
''We do not regret going to trial,'' C.E. Andrews, a senior partner at the firm who attended the proceedings, said outside the courthouse. ''The purpose of this is to fight for our honor and dignity. We do not believe we committed a crime.''  
  
Mr. Hardin, Andersen's lead lawyer in the case, said that, in describing the rationale behind its verdict, the jury members demonstrated that they had rejected the government's primary accusations against the firm -- namely, that the large scale destruction of records last fall was undertaken for the purpose of impeding a preliminary inquiry by the SEC into Enron's finances.  
  
''They convicted on a theory that wasn't even argued by the government,'' Mr. Hardin said. ''After 10 days, they could never conclude that this evidence supported the allegation that Arthur Andersen destroyed documents to keep them away from the SEC.''  
  
Mr. Hardin said that the narrow basis of the decision - involving revisions in a document that was preserved and turned over to the government - could have a damaging effect across corporate America.  
  
''If in fact what they chose means we're guilty of a crime, then every corporation in America ought to just cringe with fear,'' he said.  
  
The verdict came after days of debate over a jury question, which resulted in a precedent-setting ruling on Friday by the judge in the case, Melinda F. Harmon of Federal District Court, that supported the prosecution. In response to a question from the jurors, she decided that they could find the firm guilty even if they could not agree on which of the firm's employees had the intent to commit the crime.  
  
But jurors said today that they had ultimately agreed on a single Andersen partner as having had the intent to impede the SEC inquiry. That partner, Nancy Temple, a lawyer with the firm's legal department, was a central participant in a series of discussions last fall about Enron and Andersen's response to the company's financial troubles.  
  
The critical piece of evidence, the jurors said, was an internal memorandum written in mid-October of last year by David B. Duncan, the lead partner on the Enron account. The draft of that memorandum portrayed a conversation Mr. Duncan had with Richard A. Causey, Enron's chief accounting officer, about a news release the energy company was planning to issue regarding its third-quarter earnings. That release characterized certain losses Enron was reporting as ''nonrecurring;'' at the time, several Andersen experts, including Mr. Duncan, had concluded that such a representation was misleading.  
  
In his conversation, Mr. Duncan told Mr. Causey that such misleading information issued by other companies in the past had resulted in actions by the SEC. His draft memorandum of that conversation dutifully chronicled that portion of the discussion. But, on review, Ms. Temple suggested that Mr. Duncan remove that portion of the memorandum from the final draft, and Mr. Duncan did so.  
  
Oscar Criner, the foreman of the jury, referred to that memorandum as the smoking gun, and said that the jury concluded Ms. Temple made her suggestions for the purpose of keeping the information from the SEC. As such, Mr. Criner and other jurors said, the jury agreed that Ms. Temple had ''corruptly persuaded'' Mr. Duncan to alter information for the purpose of impeding an official proceeding. For that reason, they said, they voted to convict.  
  
Under that rationale, Mr. Duncan, who has already pleaded guilty to obstruction, did not engage in a crime in making the revisions.  
  
Andersen was charged with obstructing an SEC investigation by destroying thousands of records related to its audit of Enron.  
  
The prosecution argued that Andersen made a deliberate effort to prevent outside parties, including the SEC, from learning the full story about Enron's accounting. But the defense countered that the government had failed to provide any proof that anyone at Andersen had acted with corrupt intent to impede an inquiry.  
  
According to testimony at the trial, the roots of the Andersen case emerged last year, as the growing financial problems at Enron were beginning to come to light. In August, members of the firm's Enron audit team sent memorandums to Andersen's accounting specialists in Chicago, describing consultations that they had months before about a group of partnerships known as the Raptors.  
  
But the accounting specialists found that the memorandums did not accurately reflect the consultations and that Enron's accounting procedures had been specifically determined by the specialists to violate generally accepted accounting principles.  
  
As the two sides discussed what the memorandums should say, it was becoming evident that this accounting dispute could have enormous financial repercussions on Enron. At about that point, the legal department at Andersen became involved in the discussions. Eventually, by late September, the matter was assigned to Ms. Temple, a relatively new lawyer in the department.  
  
As the discussions continued, more problems with the Enron accounting began to emerge. Rapidly, it became evident that the company was facing a potential financial debacle. By October 8, Ms. Temple began to discuss Andersen's document-retention policy in a series of conference calls with other members of the firm.  
  
This policy required that final memorandums and documents be placed in the work papers maintained by the accountants, while all other records -- including email messages, notes and draft memorandums -- be destroyed.  
  
On October 12, Ms. Temple sent an email message to Houston, saying that ''it would be helpful'' if members of the accounting team working on Enron made sure that they were in compliance with the document-retention policy.  
  
On October 17, soon after Enron's financial problems first became public, the SEC sent a letter to the company saying that an informal inquiry into some financial practices had begun. Andersen learned of the letter two days later. Days later, on October 23, Mr. Duncan instructed members of his team to comply with the document policy. Those instructions were repeated in the days that followed. In response, thousands of email messages were deleted, and dozens of trunks full of documents were sent to the shredders.  
  
In the weeks that followed, the Enron debacle escalated, ending with the company's filing for bankruptcy protection in December. Congress began its investigations, and Andersen was on the hot seat. In early January, as lawyers for the firm were examining laptop computers for email messages related to Enron, they discovered that the records had been wiped clean. Soon, top Andersen executives learned of the huge effort to destroy documents.  
  
Andersen alerted the SEC, the Justice Department and the Congressional committees investigating Enron. Within days, it determined that Mr. Duncan had improperly engaged in a destruction effort and fired him. In testimony before Congress late in January, a senior Andersen official said all evidence pointed to the fact that Mr. Duncan was destroying records to keep them away from investigators.  
  
By early March, the government decided how it would handle the matter.  
  
Based largely on what had happened in the conference calls, and on the evidence of Ms. Temple's actions, prosecutors determined that the document destruction was a coordinated effort led from Chicago, and thus merited the indictment of Andersen.

* * *

“WorldCom Says It Hid Expenses, Inflating Cash Flow $3.8 Billion,” by Simon Romero and Alex Berenson, _The New York Times_ , June 26, 2002  
  
WorldCom, the nation's second-largest long-distance carrier, said last night that it had overstated its cash flow by more than $3.8 billion during the last five quarters in what appears to be one of the largest cases of false corporate bookkeeping yet.  
  
The problem, discovered during an internal audit, throws into doubt the survival of WorldCom and MCI, the long-distance company it acquired in 1998. The company, which was already the subject of a federal investigation into its accounting practices, has been struggling to refinance $30 billion in debt. Its credit was relegated to junk-bond status last month, and even before last night's announcement, the stock price was down more than 94 percent so far this year.  
  
Some analysts now see a bankruptcy filing as a strong possibility, which would follow the pattern of Enron, Global Crossing and other companies laid low by accounting scandals since last fall. In an effort to avoid that fate, WorldCom said last night that it would cut 17,000 employees, or one-fifth of its work force. Analysts had been expecting a job cut of that magnitude for several weeks.  
  
Instead of the profit of $1.4 billion the company reported in 2001 and $130 million in this year's first quarter, WorldCom now says it lost money during those periods, although it did not say how much.  
  
In disclosing the bookkeeping problem, WorldCom said it had fired its chief financial officer, Scott D. Sullivan, the executive widely credited with helping orchestrate the financial strategy during the mid-to-late 1990's that enabled WorldCom to rise from a second-tier telecommunications company to a world giant through a series of acquisitions that included the $30 billion purchase of MCI in 1998.  
  
Mr. Sullivan had been the executive closest to Bernard J. Ebbers, the company's longtime chief executive, who abruptly resigned in April, owing WorldCom more than $366 million for loans and loan guarantees the company had made to him.  
  
WorldCom's board said it had fired Mr. Sullivan after discovering a strategy in which operating costs like basic network maintenance had been booked as capital investments, an accounting gimmick that enabled WorldCom to hide expenses, inflate its cash flow and report profits instead of losses. Until last month, WorldCom's auditor had been Arthur Andersen, the accounting firm that also audited the books of Enron and Global Crossing.  
  
WorldCom, which had a peak value of $115.3 billion in June 1999 when its shares reached a high of $62, is now worth less than $1 billion. Its stock, which had already been down more than 94 percent for the year before last night's disclosure, plunged as low as 26 cents in after-hours trading last night.  
  
In addition to dismissing Mr. Sullivan, WorldCom's board said it had accepted the resignation of David Myers as senior vice president and financial controller. The company said it had notified the Securities and Exchange Commission, which had already been investigating the company's accounting. WorldCom also said it was hiring William R. McLucas, the former chief of the enforcement division of the SEC, to conduct an independent investigation.  
  
Mr. Sullivan was unavailable for comment.  
  
The SEC said in a statement released early today that the disclosures confirmed ''accounting improprieties of unprecedented magnitude.''  
  
The statement, by Christi Harlan, director of public affairs, said the commission was ordering the company to file, under oath, ''a detailed report of the circumstances and specifics of these matters.''  
  
The agency also said the events ''further demonstrate the need for comprehensive market regulatory reforms that the administration, the Congress and the SEC have been advocating and implementing.''  
  
The company said last night that it had informed its main bank lenders of the bookkeeping problems. It is currently in tense negotiations with its banks, a group led by Citigroup, Bank of America and JPMorganChase, about restructuring lines of credit worth about $5 billion.  
  
Last night's disclosure is expected to add to the problems of telecommunications companies to arrange financing as the industry's long slump continues.  
  
''This is horrible for the industry,'' said Susan Kalla, senior telecommunications analyst at Friedman, Billings & Ramsey. ''If we can't hang our hat on historical numbers, why should we believe in the present figures?''  
  
The size of WorldCom's restatement surprised even hardened short-sellers -- investors who profit when stocks fall and generally view corporate America with skepticism. ''I'm kind of shaken by that,'' said James Chanos, a short seller who played a major role in unearthing Enron's overstated profits and hidden debt. ''I'm about as cynical as they come. It's pretty amazing.''  
  
Particularly disturbing, Mr. Chanos said, is that WorldCom had manipulated its cash flow statements, not just its reported earnings. Investors used to believe that cash flow was a more reliable indicator of a company's financial health because the number could not be manipulated as easily as earnings, but that assumption now appears to be wrong. WorldCom now joins a list that includes Dynegy, Adelphia Communications and Tyco International as companies that have apparently used financial gimmicks to inflate their cash flow.  
  
''The one touchstone that investors had was that you couldn't fudge cash flow numbers, but apparently you can,'' Mr. Chanos said. ''Like any system, it can be gamed if enough people are looking at something, an unscrupulous management will find a way to game it.''  
  
WorldCom's news rattled investors in other companies. In after-hours trading, technology and telecom stocks and broad market indexes plunged after word of the accounting problem, first reported by the financial news cable network CNBC. Stocks had already fallen in regular trading yesterday. The NASDAQ 100 index, composed mainly of big technology stocks, fell almost 3 percent in after-hours trading, while the Standard & Poor's 500 index of major companies dropped more than 1.5 percent.  
  
David Tice, another short seller, said WorldCom's rise and fall was emblematic of larger problems in Wall Street and corporate America.  
  
When WorldCom's stock was rising, Mr. Tice said, investors cheered its acquisition binge and paid little attention to how the company generated its profits. That attitude, he said, encouraged the company to stretch accounting rules and take ever-bigger risks in an effort to keep its stock rising.  
  
During the late 1990s, ''the executives, the money managers, the auditors, the CFOs, the CEOs, the ones that got ahead were the most reckless, the least ethical,'' Mr. Tice said.  
  
''The most reckless guys were the ones that ended up having the most power and the highest market valuations,'' he said.

* * *

“WorldCom Facing Charges of Fraud, Inquiries Expand,” by Simon Romero, _The New York Times_ , June 27, 2002 **  
  
**The Securities and Exchange Commission filed fraud charges against WorldCom yesterday and President Bush vowed to ''hold people accountable'' for the bookkeeping scandal at the company, the nation's second-largest long-distance provider and a major carrier of Internet traffic.  
  
As the stock market shuddered yesterday in response to Tuesday night's disclosure that WorldCom had falsely reported profits for the last five quarters, the NASDAQ exchange suspended trading of shares in WorldCom and the tracking stock of its MCI unit. And as the value of WorldCom's corporate bonds plummeted, it became clear that the debt-ridden company would now face tougher negotiations with its bank lenders, making a bankruptcy filing more likely.  
  
Meanwhile, the Justice Department and a House committee opened investigations of the company's accounting methods, and the SEC said it would expand its own investigation, which it began in March.  
  
As the company's work force braced for a wave of pink slips -- WorldCom plans to cut 17,000 of its 85,000 employees beginning tomorrow -- some consumer and corporate customers of WorldCom's MCI long-distance unit were already looking for alternative carriers.  
  
Few telecommunications companies looked like havens yesterday, though, as WorldCom's bad news helped batter stocks of other carriers in this country and overseas, companies that have already been struggling to emerge from the communications industry's long recession.  
  
''The industry is reeling from this black mark,'' Jose Collazo, chief executive of Infonet, a WorldCom competitor, said in an interview.  
  
It was as if months of accounting scandals, which have already engulfed Enron, Global Crossing and Adelphia Communications, among others, as well as the auditing firm Arthur Andersen, had finally hit critical mass with the disclosure late Tuesday that WorldCom had masked losses by overstating its financial results by $3.8 billion -- one of the largest cases of false corporate bookkeeping yet.  
  
President Bush, speaking yesterday on the opening day of an eight-nation economic meeting in Kananaskis, Alberta, called the WorldCom revelation ''outrageous'' and vowed, ''We will fully investigate and hold people accountable for misleading not only shareholders but employees as well.''  
  
In an apparent show of the administration's resolve, a few hours later the chairman of the SEC, Harvey L. Pitt, told reporters in Manhattan that the commission had taken the unusual step of filing civil fraud charges against WorldCom. He said part of the aim was to prevent the destruction of documents by WorldCom while the SEC continued its investigation.  
  
In its court filing, the SEC said WorldCom violated antifraud and reporting provisions of federal securities laws by creating an accounting scheme intended to manipulate earnings to meet Wall Street's expectations and to support the company's stock price. Under this scheme, the SEC said, WorldCom improperly booked so-called line costs, or the fees WorldCom paid to other communications companies to use their networks, as capital investments, which had the effect of masking losses.  
  
The accounting strategy, which the SEC said was put in place in early 2001 as the slowing economy resulted in a decline in WorldCom's profits, may have been blessed by executives other than Scott D. Sullivan, the chief financial officer who was fired this week, and David Myers, the controller, who resigned, according to the commission's complaint.  
  
''In a scheme directed and approved by its senior management, WorldCom disguised its true operating performance by using undisclosed and improper accounting that materially overstated its income,'' the SEC said in its complaint.  
  
It remains to be seen whether the Justice Department will investigate WorldCom with the same intensity it has shown in its investigation of Enron, for which it set up a special task force. Bryan Sierra, a spokesman for the Justice Department, declined to comment yesterday, but people close to the company said that a Justice inquiry was under way.  
  
The House Energy and Commerce Committee, meanwhile, which has looked into business practices at Enron, Global Crossing and ImClone, will now turn its attention to WorldCom, according to its chairman, Billy Tauzin, Republican of Louisiana.  
  
''This was not a simple bookkeeping mistake,'' Mr. Tauzin said in a statement released yesterday. ''Clearly, it was an orchestrated effort to mislead investors and regulators, and I am determined to get to the bottom of it.''  
  
John W. Sidgmore, WorldCom's chief executive, who disclosed the WorldCom bookkeeping problem on Tuesday night and announced that Mr. Sullivan had been fired, was not available for comment yesterday. Instead, he put a statement on the company's Web site, saying in part, ''This has been a very tough week for WorldCom, there's no doubt about it.''  
  
Mr. Sidgmore spent much of the day yesterday in discussions with WorldCom's large customers and some of its employees, but it could not be determined whether he had held further talks with the company's bankers, with whom he had met in New York on Tuesday.  
  
WorldCom's future hinges on negotiating additional loans with its banks, led by Bank of America and including JPMorganChase and Citigroup. The company had been planning to tap a multibillion-dollar credit line this week. But now that does not seem feasible, because the accounting disclosures indicate that the company was in violation of its financing terms throughout 2001 and the beginning of this year.  
  
Without additional loans, analysts said, WorldCom has about $2.5 billion of available cash, which the company would probably consume within three months.  
  
''We believe WorldCom's lead banks may refuse to honor additional requests to draw down credit lines and that negotiations over new, securitized credit lines are likely to falter,'' said Dan Reingold, an analyst at Credit Suisse First Boston. ''This, of course, means bankruptcy is now a distinct and near-term possibility.''  
  
Mr. Sidgmore took over as chief executive in late April after WorldCom's longtime leader, Bernard J. Ebbers, resigned following the company's disclosure that Mr. Ebbers owed WorldCom more than $366 million for loans and loan guarantees the company had granted him. In the wake of the new disclosures, Mr. Sidgmore is now faced with the task of drastically scaling back WorldCom's work force and its expectations.  
  
He is making his base in Washington, the city where MCI had its headquarters before being acquired by WorldCom in 1998, as he maintains distance from WorldCom's official headquarters in Clinton, Mississippi.  
  
The first of the 17,000 job cuts are scheduled to begin tomorrow at several locations around the world. In addition to Clinton and Washington, WorldCom's large offices in the United States are in Dallas; Ashburn, Virginia; Tulsa, Oklahoma; and Alpharetta, Georgia. The dismissals are expected to be distributed fairly evenly among work categories and geographic locations.  
  
WorldCom's disclosure of its accounting problem weighed on the entire telecommunications industry yesterday. Although trading in the company's shares was officially suspended by NASDAQ, in off-exchange electronic trading on Instinet and elsewhere, the stock fell to as low as 9 cents, down from 83 cents at Tuesday's close. The North American Telecom Index, which includes WorldCom and other large service providers, fell more than 10 percent yesterday.  
  
Shares in Qwest Communications, another large company whose accounting practices are under investigation by the SEC, plunged $2.40, to $1.79. Companies that sell equipment to WorldCom and its competitors also fell, with the shares of Lucent Technologies down 39 cents, to close at $1.58, and Nortel Networks down 14 cents, closing at $1.47.  
  
Even shares in WorldCom competitors like AT&T and Sprint, which stand to gain from customer defections, fell yesterday. AT&T's stock reached a 10-year low, falling 33 cents, to end the day at $9.62.  
  
''I am deeply concerned by the WorldCom developments, and the impact it could have on consumers and other providers in the industry,'' Michael K. Powell, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, said in a statement yesterday. ''We are closely monitoring the situation and are doing everything possible to ensure and protect both the stability of the telecommunications network and the quality of service to consumers.''  
  
Mr. Powell said he would travel to New York tomorrow to meet with telephone industry officials, analysts and debt-rating agencies to discuss the crisis in the telecommunications industry.  
  
Several consumer groups called yesterday for greater regulation of the industry, fearful that a bankruptcy filing by WorldCom would limit the competitive choices that have steadily lowered the cost of long distance in recent years.  
  
The Telecommunications Research and Action Center, a nonprofit group in Washington, asked the FCC to reinstate full regulatory oversight of the long-distance industry to assure that consumers did not end up paying more for WorldCom's accounting scandal. Another group, Consumers Union, urged Congress to approve a corporate-accounting reform bill sponsored by Senator Paul Sarbanes, Democrat of Maryland and chairman of the Senate Banking Committee.  
  
Whatever regulatory remedies may be applied, analysts said, the telecommunications industry is likely to be left reeling, as WorldCom's collapse works its way through a system that has already had $2 trillion of shareholder value in its member companies erased in the last two years.  
  
Scott Cleland, chief executive of the Precursor Group, a consulting firm based in Washington, warned, ''Investors are in denial, just like they were with WorldCom, on how much worse it can get.''

* * *

“New Disclosures From WorldCom May Add to Accounting Scandal,” by Simon Romero and Floyd Norris, _The New York Times_ , July 2, 2002  
  
The WorldCom accounting scandal threatened to grow yesterday as the company disclosed that its profits might have been exaggerated as far back as 1999, or two years earlier than previously disclosed.  
  
The disclosure of new accounting problems, which one person briefed on the situation said could indicate that WorldCom overstated profits by more than $1 billion in 1999 and 2000, was the latest blow for the company. Last week it said that it had overstated pretax profits by $3.8 billion in 2001 and early this year.  
  
It also disclosed yesterday that it was in default on some debts and that its stock would be delisted from the NASDAQ stock market on Friday. Its share price plunged on volume that set a record for NASDAQ. Worries over the possibilities of more scandals helped send the NASDAQ composite index down 4 percent to a five-year low.  
  
WorldCom's disclosure of possible new accounting problems came in a filing that the Securities and Exchange Commission had ordered to provide details of its 2001 and 2002 accounting irregularities. The SEC filed civil fraud allegations against the company last week.  
  
WorldCom said yesterday that it was investigating whether accounting reserves had been improperly used in 1999 and 2000. Such reserves, which are set up after mergers and other events, can be used later to increase profits, a tactic that may be improper under some circumstances. The company did not give details. Tapping into those reserves could have allowed WorldCom to create a facade of robust financial health when its strategy of aggressively acquiring other companies was at its peak.  
  
A number of WorldCom executives and directors sold shares during 1999 and 2000, the period covered by the new accounting issues. Scott D. Sullivan, the ousted chief financial officer, sold shares worth $18 million in August 2000. John Sidgmore, a director who became chief executive after the resignation of Bernard J. Ebbers in April, made more than $35 million from the sale of his shares in June 1999. Max Bobbitt, the chairman of WorldCom's audit committee, made $1.8 million from selling his stock in February 1999.  
  
WorldCom's new statements about the already disclosed accounting problems were sketchy and provided little additional information. They were denounced by Harvey L. Pitt, the SEC's chairman. ''WorldCom's statement is wholly inadequate and incomplete,'' he said. ''It demonstrates a lack of commitment to full disclosure to investors and less than full cooperation with the SEC.''  
  
Companies have used creative accounting methods well within the law to finesse their financial results for years, but these strategies appear to have been pushed ever further near the end of the bull market. WorldCom's announcement follows similar disclosures about so-called cookie-jar reserves.  
  
A reserve can be set up to cover expected costs from things like the costs of closing a business or dealing with layoffs after a merger. Such reserves were often ignored by investors and analysts when they were established, so there was no penalty to taking a large loss from one. If the amount proved to be too large, the reserve could later be reversed to increase current profits, sometimes without disclosing to investors what had happened. It is not clear which reserves at WorldCom are involved.  
  
''The complexity of accounting strategies often masks a simple goal, to do whatever it takes to meet Wall Street's expectations,'' said Barbara Lougee, an accounting professor at the University of California at Irvine.  
  
Almost 1.5 billion WorldCom shares changed hands yesterday, to close down 77 cents, to 6 cents.

* * *

“WorldCom Files For Bankruptcy; Largest U.S. Case,” by Simon Romero and Riva D. Atlas, _The New York Times_ , July 22, 2002 **  
  
**WorldCom, plagued by the rapid erosion of its profits and an accounting scandal that created billions in illusory earnings, last night submitted the largest bankruptcy filing in United States history.  
  
The bankruptcy is expected to shake an already wobbling telecommunications industry, but is unlikely to have an immediate impact on customers, including the 20 million users of its MCI long-distance service.  
  
The WorldCom filing listed more than $107 billion in assets, far surpassing those of Enron, which filed for bankruptcy last December. The WorldCom filing had been anticipated since the company disclosed in late June that it had improperly accounted for more than $3.8 billion of expenses.  
  
Few experts or officials expect WorldCom's service to deteriorate noticeably, at least in the near term. ''I want to assure the public that we do not believe this bankruptcy filing will lead to an immediate disruption of service to consumers,'' Michael K. Powell, chairman of the Federal Communiciations Commission, said last night.  
  
But industry consultants said they could not imagine how the belt-tightening expected in bankruptcy would improve service that is already, in some respects, sloppy.  
  
WorldCom's collapse has already reverberated through jittery financial markets, and is likely to be felt in the wider economy, with banks, suppliers and other telephone companies devising strategies to contain their exposure.  
  
WorldCom, built through rapid acquisitions, accumulated $41 billion in debts. Founded in 1983 as LDDS Communications, it became the nation's second-largest long-distance company and the largest handler of Internet data.  
  
Company executives said they intended to remain in business, and have been promised new financing from banks to do so. ''We are going to aggressively go forward and restructure our operations,'' John W. Sidgmore, WorldCom's chief executive, said in an interview last night. ''I think ultimately we will emerge as a stronger company.''  
  
While WorldCom has already cut its work force significantly, Mr. Sidgmore said last night that he did not expect further layoffs for the time being. He said he would remain WorldCom's chief but would be joined by a chief restructuring officer brought in by creditors.  
  
Some creditors, however, have questioned whether Mr. Sidgmore, who has served on WorldCom's board for years, should remain in charge. Mr. Sidgmore took over as chief executive in late April after the board ousted Bernard J. Ebbers, one of the company's founders.  
  
Shareholders, who owned what was once one of the world's most valuable companies, worth more than $100 billion at its peak, are expected to be virtually wiped out. With the bankruptcy filing, control passes instead to the banks and bondholders who financed WorldCom's growth.  
  
Besides its own overambitious strategies and flawed accounting, WorldCom also fell victim to a glut of telecommunications capacity.  
  
Cheap and plentiful financing allowed companies rapidly to build transcontinental and transoceanic fiber optic networks in the 1990s. The additional capacity resulted in lower prices for WorldCom's services, which include basic phone service and the transmission of Internet data for large companies.  
  
Mr. Sidgmore said last night that he was opposed to breaking up WorldCom and selling its pieces, aside from an effort already under way to part with peripheral units like businesses in Latin America and some other operations. This approach would rule out selling UUNet, a large Internet backbone operation, or MCI.  
  
But once the company reorganizes, and investors gain a better understanding of its twisted finances, WorldCom could become an attractive acquisition target, analysts say.  
  
WorldCom's crisis deepened last month when it disclosed that Scott D. Sullivan, the chief financial officer, had devised a strategy that improperly accounted for $3.85 billion of expenses. Mr. Sullivan was fired by the board and David F. Myers, the financial controller, resigned. It also came out the accounting had been signed off by none other than Arthur Andersen, the firm that looked over Enron’s books, and was recently convicted of obstruction of justice for shredding important documents, effectively destroying the firm.  
  
The Securities and Exchange Commission has charged WorldCom with fraud and the Justice Department has begun a criminal investigation of its business practices.  
  
In an attempt to regain its credibility, WorldCom's board elected two new members to replace Mr. Sullivan and Mr. Ebbers: Nicholas Katzenbach, a private attorney who was attorney general in the Johnson administration; and Dennis R. Beresford, a former head of the Financial Accounting Standards Board and a professor of accounting at the Terry College of Business at the University of Georgia.  
  
The two were also appointed to a special committee to oversee the internal investigation being led by William R. McLucas, the former chief of the enforcement division of the SEC.  
  
WorldCom filed for bankruptcy shortly before 9 last night in Federal District Court in Manhattan.  
  
Its international operations, which include companies in Brazil and Mexico, were not included.  
  
The filing will relieve WorldCom of about $2 billion of interest payments in the coming year. Lower debt costs could allow WorldCom to compete on a stronger footing with its rivals, involving a potential price-cutting strategy that has analysts concerned about the wider strength of the telecommunications industry.  
  
''WorldCom probably won't get any new big contracts from its current customers, but it probably won't lose any either, because of the difficulty and complexity involved in switching carriers,'' said Glen Macdonald, a vice president with Adventis, a consulting firm in Boston.  
  
WorldCom, based in Clinton, Mississippi, scrambled in recent days to secure new financing from its banks after its cash dwindled to less than $300 million from more than $2 billion in May. WorldCom said last night that it had received commitments for up to $2 billion in additional bank financing. Such new loans to companies in bankruptcy receive top priority in repayment.  
  
WorldCom must now deal with holders of $28 billion in bonds as well as 27 banks that loaned the company $2.65 billion last May.  
  
But in contrast with other companies that have recently filed for bankruptcy, including Enron, WorldCom has many more tangible assets, generating actual revenues, lawyers said -- improving the odds that the company could emerge from bankruptcy as a going concern.  
  
The creditors first in line to be repaid will be the three institutions -- Citigroup, JPMorganChase and General Electric Capital -- that have pledged to arrange a loan of up to $2 billion, known as debtor in possession financing, to WorldCom. The lenders were comfortable pledging the funds in part because of the company's stream of customer payments, such as phone bills, one executive close to the company said last week. Citigroup is leading the new financing in part to protect what it is already owed by WorldCom.  
  
WorldCom's bankruptcy filing, like Enron's last December, came on a Sunday. Companies often prefer to file over the weekend, because the status of any business transactions in process at the time of a filing would be open to question in court.  
  
WorldCom's lenders and its bondholders were taking steps, even before the bankruptcy filing, to protect their claims. Just over a week ago, the banks that participated in the earlier $2.65 billion loan tried, unsuccessfully, to get a court order limiting WorldCom's access to the loan. The banks ultimately reached a settlement with WorldCom that placed few restrictions on the company's ability to use the cash.

* * *

"WWE Creates New Los Angeles-based Film Division," BusinessWire, July 31, 2002

STAMFORD, CT - Having made itself into a global television and live event powerhouse, World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc., has established WWE Films to focus its efforts on expanding its role within the film and television industries and has appointed Joel Simon to be the new division’s president. Simon, a well-known producer of feature film and television, will be based in WWE’s new Los Angeles office.

"We’re very excited to open WWE Films in Los Angeles. This new division will focus on developing movie and television projects," said WWE CEO Linda McMahon. "In Joel Simon, we have someone with the tenure and expertise to make this new venture a success. WWE Films will create and produce new and exciting material that will appeal not only to our loyal fans but to a larger public as well."

Mrs. McMahon said Simon will create feature film opportunities in which WWE will play a role as producer. The success of The Rock and the theatrical feature with Universal, _The Scorpion King_ , is one example of the type of opportunity WWE will continue to seek in feature films by placing WWE Superstars in prominent roles. In addition, Simon will develop new television projects - such as movies, specials or series-that will benefit from an affiliation with WWE or its Superstars. WWE will finance its own overhead and development for these projects.

Simon said he was thrilled with the opportunity. "WWE is a powerful brand that is an untapped creative resource for Hollywood," he said. "I believe that WWE has created a new breed of action-adventure hero, one with a ready-made audience. WWE attracts a strong, youth-oriented audience, the type of moviegoers and viewers who can financially make or break a film. My job is to show how the WWE brand and its Superstars can be used to best advantage to bring its global audience of teens and young adults to new film and television projects."

Simon comes to WWE from his own production company, Joel Simon Productions, formed in October 2001. He was formerly president of Quincy Jones Media Group and Quincy Jones/David Salzman Productions. He was also a Producer/Partner in Todman/Simon Productions. Among his feature production credits is _X-Men_ and _X-Men 2_ (due in 2003), _Til Death Do Us Part_ (due in 2003, starring Michael Douglas), _Wild Wild West_ , _Hard to Kill_ and _Married to the Mob_. For television, he produced the series, _The People Next Door_ , for CBS/Lorimar, as well as movies of the week for NBC/Warner Brothers and Turner Network Television. He also produced the five-hour documentary, _Say It Loud_ , for VH1.

Scott Stuber, President of Production, Vivendi Universal Entertainment, said, "We had a great experience working with WWE on _The Scorpion King,_ and the hiring of a pro like Joel Simon to head WWE Films demonstrates the company's commitment to playing a meaningful role in the film industry."

Leslie Moonves, President and Chief Executive Officer of CBS, said, "WWE has a proven track record for producing popular television shows. Expanding their brand is a natural next step and Joel Simon is a good guy to have leading that effort."

World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc. (NYSE: WWE) is an integrated media and entertainment company headquartered in Stamford, Connecticut, with offices in New York City, Chicago, Toronto and London. Additional information on the company can be found at wwe.com and corporate.wwe.com. Information on television ratings and community activities can be found at parents.wwe.com.

* * *

"DreamWorks Secures $1.5 Billion in Financing," Reuters, August 24, 2002

DreamWorks SKG, the Hollywood studio founded by Steven Spielberg, David Geffen and Jeffrey Katzenberg, said Friday that it has closed two major financing deals worth a total of $1.5 billion. The sum consists of a $1-billion film securitization, which DreamWorks labeled as the first of its kind in the industry, and a $500-million revolving credit line. Under its unique structure, the film securitization relies on expected revenue from movies yet to be released as well as expected cash from a library of old DreamWorks films such as _Saving Private Ryan_ and _Shrek_.

The new financing should allow DreamWorks to produce more live-action films, its most successful business, and fund a planned computer generated animation production unit, which would bring the number of animated filmmaking divisions to three. Analysts said the financing also would give DreamWorks a strong basis to pursue several entertainment assets expected to come on the market in the months ahead from distressed media companies looking to raise cash.

Most notable among those is Vivendi Universal, which has said it must shed assets to pay down debt. Many industry insiders have speculated that its Universal Pictures division may be sought by DreamWorks because it has strong historical ties to Spielberg. However, Geffen has said DreamWorks has no interest in a deal to put it into the same league as the major global media players, such as Vivendi Universal, Walt Disney Co., AOL Time Warner Inc., Viacom Inc. and News Corp.

DreamWorks said the financing deal substantially reduced its cost of borrowing. It also extended the closely held company’s access to debt funding until at least October 2007. JPMorgan Chase & Co. and FleetBoston Financial Corp. co-arranged the securitization, with nine banks participating in the securitization and three more in the credit line.

* * *

"After Successful Test Run Disney Anime block Jetix to premiere January 2003", Anime News Network, September 2, 2002  
  
During the last week, The Disney Channel did a test run of its new anime programming block, Jetix, in which it aired various licensed anime series such as _Hamtaro, Transformers: Armada_ and _Watchpoint Kyoto_. The series did quite well, along with the channel's various other series for its elementary school and adolescent blocks. (In fact, the channel has been continually showing not only all its usual current programming, but also even starting to dust off some of its older series, including those from it's original premium cable days in the '80s and early '90s, and is considering making a sister channel solely dedicated to vintage programming.)  
  
Buoyed by the reception the test run received, Disney has slated Jetix to officially become a permanent fixture of the channel's schedule, starting in January. It will then also begin ramping up efforts to create its own in-house dubbing studio to compete in bidding wars with other such services for the rights to English adaptations. For example, Cartoon Network's Toonami and Adult Swim programming blocks have obtained the right to the English dub of the series _Inuyasha_ , which is slated to begin recording later in 2003. Now Disney will be able compete in this particular field. Disney CEO Michael Eisner actually commented personally about this development. "We at Disney have learned that there is quite a field of interest out there for manga and anime properties, especially since the entire field of the genre was highly inspired by Walt himself. Our success with Studio Ghibli and our partnership with Squaresoft with _Kingdom Hearts_ (which will combine the beloved characters of the Disney animated canon with the characters and storytelling techniques of the highly successful _Final Fantasy_ franchise, as well as creating original characters as the main protagonists to drive the plot) are already a quantum leap forward in bringing mainstream success and visibility to the genre. Now we are taking the logical next step forward in helping spearhead English translations of beloved and popular series for North American audiences to see. Our intent to is capture and stay true to the creative vision of these series, while making them more accessible."  
  
Besides all of this, Disney's acquisition of Saban Entertainment and its properties also gives it a massive advantage in this strategy. In addition to the anime _Digimon_ , Disney also holds the right to the long-running and highly popular live-action _Power Rangers_ franchise, which is itself a Westernized version of a popular and still-running Japanese television series. Disney plans to aggressively exploit the Saban catalog as well as expand on these series through spinoffs as well as creating original programming based on or inspired by them, in both animated and live action format.

* * *

“Former Sunbeam Chief Agrees To Ban and a Fine of $500,000,” by Floyd Norris, _The New York Times_ , September 5, 2002 **  
  
**Albert J. Dunlap, the former chief executive of the Sunbeam Corporation, agreed yesterday to pay a $500,000 fine and to accept being banned from ever serving as an officer or director of a public company.  
  
Mr. Dunlap, who earlier agreed to pay $15 million to settle a shareholder suit, neither admitted nor denied allegations by the Securities and Exchange Commission that he engineered a large accounting fraud that inflated the profits of Sunbeam after he was hired to turn the company around in 1996, when he was viewed as a star on Wall Street.  
  
Russell A. Kersh, 48, the former chief financial officer of Sunbeam, and Mr. Dunlap's top aide before that at the Scott Paper Company, also settled charges by the SEC, agreeing to pay $200,000. He previously agreed to pay $250,000 to settle the shareholder suit.  
  
Mr. Dunlap, who embraced the nickname Chainsaw Al, became famous in the 1990s as he laid off thousands of workers at Scott Paper in what he said was a necessary move to cut costs.  
  
His autobiography, _Mean Business_ , became a best seller after he joined Sunbeam. ''Most CEOs are ridiculously overpaid,'' he wrote in the book, ''but I deserved the $100 million I took away when Scott merged with Kimberly-Clark.''  
  
Mr. Dunlap, now 65, presumably still has most of that money, although, as his lawyer noted yesterday, he did not make any money from selling Sunbeam stock before those shares collapsed and the company went into bankruptcy last year.  
  
Justice Department officials would not comment yesterday on whether Mr. Dunlap might still face criminal charges. The SEC said the fraud continued into 1998, so the five-year statute of limitations has yet to expire.  
  
When Mr. Dunlap was hired at Sunbeam, the company's share price leaped nearly 50 percent on the announcement, and it rose further after the company reported a turnaround in 1997. Sunbeam's board responded by agreeing to double Mr. Dunlap's base salary to $2 million a year.  
  
But the SEC later said that the turnaround was largely because of fraud. The company restated profits and later filed for bankruptcy.  
  
''This was a primer in the techniques of financial fraud in that they employed such a wide variety of techniques to manage earnings,'' Thomas C. Newkirk, an SEC associate director of enforcement, said yesterday.  
  
Unknown to investors at the time was that Mr. Dunlap had faced similar allegations of financial fraud at a much smaller company he ran earlier in his career. That company, a privately held paper producer named Nitec, also went broke after Mr. Dunlap appeared to have produced impressive profits. Mr. Dunlap dropped that job, and another from which he was fired, from his employment history, a fact that was not discovered by executive search firms that recommended him for later jobs.  
  
The SEC said that fraud allegations against three other Sunbeam officers who served under Mr. Dunlap, and against Phillip Harlow, the Arthur Andersen partner who headed the audit team that certified financial results that the SEC said were fraudulent, had not been settled. Trial on those charges, in a federal district court in Florida, is scheduled to begin in January. The former officers are Robert J. Gluck, Donald R. Uzzi and Lee B. Griffith.  
  
Mr. Dunlap and Mr. Kersh agreed as part of yesterday's settlement to testify at that trial if called. But they did not agree to cooperate, and both have previously denied they did anything wrong.  
  
Indeed, Frank C. Razzano, a lawyer for Mr. Dunlap, yesterday pointed to a decision by a federal judge accepting the settlement of the shareholder suit for a fraction of the billions lost by investors in the Sunbeam collapse. In explaining why they settled for so little, class-action lawyers said they had ''no direct evidence'' that Mr. Dunlap ''had any actual knowledge of Sunbeam's improper accounting techniques.''  
  
The SEC suit claimed that Mr. Dunlap had such knowledge and that he and Mr. Kersh oversaw the fraud. Richard Sauer, an assistant director of enforcement at the SEC, said that they used a variety of accounting techniques to overstate losses in 1996 -- when Mr. Dunlap could blame the results on prior management -- and to overstate profits in 1997 and early 1998. He said those included the use of ''cookie jar reserves,'' which were created in 1996 and could be used to increase profits later, and of a number of techniques to overstate sales in 1997.  
  
Among the tactics were so-called buy-and-hold sales in which Sunbeam ''sold'' barbecue grills to retailers in the winter, at deep discounts, even though the grills would not be delivered or paid for until spring. That pumped up 1997 sales and profits at the expense of 1998 results, the SEC said.  
  
Mr. Razzano said that the settlement would allow Mr. Dunlap ''to pursue his retirement and, therefore, is a welcome outcome.''  
  
Jeffrey Tew, a lawyer for Mr. Kersh, said his client ''is glad to get this case behind him and is looking forward to the future.'' He declined to say if Mr. Kersh was employed.  
  
''Mr. Kersh did not sell any stock or options while he was a director or an officer, and did not get any performance bonuses, which I believe differentiates him from other officers who are currently in the news,'' Mr. Tew said, in an apparent reference to officials of companies like Enron and WorldCom, which also went bankrupt after accounting irregularities were discovered.  
  
Both Mr. Tew and Mr. Razzano declined to say if they knew of a criminal investigation of their clients.  
  
The SEC claimed that the two men expected to make tens of millions of dollars from cashing in options and restricted stock when Sunbeam was sold to another company. Sunbeam hired an investment banker to seek a buyer in the fall of 1997, but did not find one. Part of the problem was that investors had bid the stock so high that it did not appear to be a good value even if the reported profits were accurate -- though they did not turn out to be.  
  
Sunbeam shares peaked at $53 in March 1998, shortly before the company was forced to begin scaling back forecasts of profits. Yesterday, they closed at 9 cents, up half a cent. The company has not yet filed a bankruptcy reorganization plan, but has said it expects shareholders to be wiped out as the result of such a plan.

* * *

"WWE Films Names Jed Blaugrund as Vice President," BusinessWire, September 9, 2002

LOS ANGELES, CA.- World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc., today named Jed Blaugrund as Vice President, Production, in its WWE Films division. He will be based in WWE’s Los Angeles office. Blaugrund will be responsible for developing movie and television projects for WWE Films and will report to WWE Films president Joel Simon.

"Jed’s background and passion for movies makes him perfectly suited to develop and produce movies for WWE Films. His writer relationships and creative instincts are stellar, and I’m thrilled to have him on my team," said Simon. 

Blaugrund comes to WWE from Universal Studios-based Mostow/Lieberman Productions where he was VP of Production. Reporting to company principals Jonathan Mostow ( _Breakdown, U-571, Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines_ ) and Hal Lieberman, Blaugrund supervised development of the company’s slate of projects. Before Mostow/Lieberman, Blaugrund was a Creative Executive at Turner Pictures working on such projects as _Michael, Any Given Sunday_ , and _City of Angels_. Blaugrund began his career as an assistant to Bedford Falls Company co-founder Edward Zwick where he worked on _Legends of the Fall_ and the television series, _My So-Called Life_.

"I’m thrilled to be joining the WWE family," Blaugrund said. "I look forward to making films that appeal to not only our loyal fans, but to moviegoers worldwide. The WWE brand is incredibly powerful and recognizable; I know this division will only build upon that success."

World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc. (NYSE: WWE) is an integrated media and entertainment company headquartered in Stamford, Connecticut, with offices in New York City, Los Angeles, Toronto and London. Additional information on the company can be found at wwe.com and corporate.wwe.com. Information on television ratings and community activities can be found at parents.wwe.com.

* * *

"Playhouse Disney to be Spun-off into Self Contained Network to Make Room for Anime Block Jetix", TV Guide, September 15, 2002  
  
In a stunning new development of showing how The Disney Channel is evolving with its ambitious new plans, the Playhouse Disney programming block is now being spun off into a separate 24-hour network in order to make room for its new anime programming block, Jetix, which launches in January. There is no need to upgrade cable packages to access the Playhouse Disney network, as it will part of all basic access packages, and the Disney-ABC Television Group also said the same will be true of any future channel spinoffs for vintage ABC and Disney Channel series.  
  
"Any and all audiences that wish to see their favorite shows will still get the chance, but now with greater flexibility in their personal schedules and more variety," Disney COO and longtime ABC head Robert A. Iger told the press. "This is all about ensuring that we have a broader reach and more dedicated viewers willing to see us whenever they so please. We expect nothing but upwards momentum regarding our TV slate and outlook, especially in ensuring that anyone can see their shows whenever they wish, long after new episodes have been aired, even."

* * *

"Democratic Congress Plans Sweeping Counter-revolution," _The Washington Post_ , January 5, 2003

Back in November, both houses of Congress experienced a sweeping change as the Democrats won elections across the nation and took back control both the House and the Senate. This amounted to the biggest political realignment since the Republicans swept Congress back in 1994 under rising Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich and his "Contract With America," as a push back against President Clinton and his policies, partially to continue to drumbeat of investigating apparent scandals against him, and which led to Clinton backing away from liberalism in his policies and more to centrism.

Now, with newly-elected Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi of California and the ascension of long-serving Democratic Senator Max Cleland of Georgia to Senate Majority Leader, a similar pushback against the Bush administration and to essentially push certain legislation that would have been pushed for under an Al Gore presidency, is in the works. Among the elements Pelosi and Cleland advocate are America ratifying the Kyoto Protocols and implementing massive actions to decrease carbon emissions, increasing the budget for NASA, strengthening the Sarbanes-Oxley Act to increase regulatory control and consequences for accounting fraud like with Enron and WorldCom, amending the No Child Left Behind Act to make stronger education system reform and less reliant on standadized testing, increasing the amount of works and power of public domain (part of which happens to be happening with Disney CEO Michael Eisner's recent revisionist history to keep Mickey Mouse from enterting public domain as scheduled this year), creating federal hate crimes legislation, codifying a more uniform procedure and standard for the recently established Department of Homeland Security and regarding the War on Terror, Medicare/Medicaid reform to modify President Bush's strategy, Social Security reform by implementing Gore's proposed "lockbox" strategy, opening up on gay rights by moving past Don't Ask Don't Tell, overturning President Bush's massive restrictions regarding stem-cell research and giving federal funding to it, massive federal grants for lab-grown vegan substitutes for meat that would taste convincingly like meat and also intend to be healthier without animal fats, trans fats, saturated fats or heavy use of salts, labeling Internet access as a public utility through the so-called "net neutrality" proposal, adding cell phone service to the Landlines program as well as comprehensive reform and protection for public telephones, a proposed reintroduction/revision of the FCC's Fairness Doctrine, and shoring up America's infrastructure.

* * *

"AOL Posts a $98.7 Billion Loss On New Goodwill Writedown," by Martin Peers and Julia Angwin, _The Wall Street Journal_ , January 30, 2003

_Annual loss is biggest in history._

In an astonishing end to a disastrous year, AOL Time Warner Inc. reported a 2002 net loss of $98.7 billion after taking a fourth-quarter charge of $45.5 billion, mostly to write down the value of its troubled America Online unit. The writedown, creating the biggest annual corporate loss in history, was more than twice what Wall Street had anticipated.

AOL also announced the resignation of Ted Turner as vice chairman. Mr. Turner, the maverick entrepreneur who founded Cable News Network, is the latest in an exodus of senior executives. Mr. Turner has been one of the most outspoken members of the AOL board, angry at the disastrous outcome of America Online's $103.5 billion acquisition of Time Warner in January 2001.

Mr. Turner, one of the single biggest shareholders in AOL, said he wants to spend more time on philanthropic activities. If he also resigns from the board, Mr. Turner could become a more public critic of the company. An AOL spokesman said Chief Executive Richard Parsons expects Mr. Turner to remain on the board, but said the two plan to meet soon "to discuss it."

The huge loss underscores how much value has evaporated from what was once the largest, and most-heralded, merger in U.S. history. The merger, marrying old media and new media, unraveled amid intense corporate infighting and a sharp slump in America Online's business a few months after the deal closed. AOL's stock price dropped sharply during the past 18 months, wiping out more than $100 billion in market value.

The announcement came after the close of regular trading Wednesday, during which AOL stock rose 30 cents a share to $13.96. In after-hours trading, AOL stock was quoted at $12.55 a share.  
  
But the size of the noncash writedown probably won't cause a change in direction for the company, which is already in fix-it mode. It represents an effort by the company to get as much bad news as possible out of the way. Most of the senior executives associated with the merger deal, including former Time Warner chairman Gerald Levin, former America Online president Robert Pittman and former AOL chairman Steve Case, have quit the company, leaving Mr. Parsons with an agenda he has already outlined: Pay down debt and try to turn around America Online.

Mr. Parsons, a former Time Warner executive known for his smooth political skills, took over as CEO last spring and has so far been unsullied by the merger's failure. Now, if Mr. Parsons doesn't show improvement at the vast media conglomerate by the end of the year, Capital Group and other big shareholders, who successfully agitated for Mr. Case's ouster, could push for installation of a new CEO, such as Viacom Inc. President Mel Karmazin.

Until now, the strength of the Time Warner businesses -- which range from HBO to Warner Bros. to Time Inc. -- had been the saving grace of the company, reinforcing Time Warner executives' anger at America Online. Those complaints may now start to wear thin. On Wednesday evening, Mr. Parsons said that the music and cable-television units would likely post weaker results this year. As a result, AOL said it expects earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, known as EBITDA, the company's preferred measure of profitability, to be "essentially flat year-over-year" in 2003, much worse than analysts had expected. The weak results will undoubtedly add to a drumbeat in certain quarters that America Online be jettisoned.

In a conference call with analysts, Mr. Parsons described 2003 as a "reset year," from which he promised that AOL would "reemerge with new momentum."

"The structural issues are perhaps messier than I anticipated," said John Tinker, an analyst at Blaylock & Partners. "Even though music is small, music is in danger of imploding."

The monstrous fourth-quarter charge came on top of a $54 billion writedown in the first quarter, which reflected a reduction in value of assets of the Time Warner businesses. But that charge, mandated by new accounting rules on goodwill, didn't include any reduction for the online business.

AOL has now written off most of the goodwill -- usually defined as the difference between the purchase price and the book value of a company's assets -- associated with America Online, a move that underscores the depth of problems facing the business. Indeed, the online unit said Wednesday its U.S. and world-wide subscriber numbers fell for the first time ever. The charge also included a writedown in the value of the cable-TV unit and the music division.

The size of the charge took AOL close to breaching covenants, or conditions, on its bank-loan agreements. But AOL Chief Financial Officer Wayne Pace said in the conference call that the company had renegotiated its credit line. Breach of those agreements would have been embarrassing for AOL, which is trying to preserve its investment-grade credit rating.

The charge also reveals how quickly the value of AOL's assets have plummeted. In August, Mr. Pace had said "it's absolutely premature and inappropriate to take an impairment charge at this time." Some accounting specialists had predicted last year that the company would have to write down its intangible assets further by tens of billions of dollars, significantly narrowing the gap between the company's net worth, which then was listed at $97.7 billion, and its $50 billion net-worth loan covenant. Today, AOL's net worth, or its assets minus liabilities, is down to $52.82 billion, although the net worth covenant isn't in the loan agreement anymore.

Mr. Parsons also indicated that while he is redoubling his efforts to reduce AOL's $26 billion debt, he won't show clear progress until next year. AOL sold its stake in Hughes Electronics Corp., a unit of General Motors Corp., for about $800 million on Tuesday night to pay down debt. But Mr. Parsons said AOL faces additional obligations this year, such as buying Vivendi Universal SA's stake in a European venture for $800 million. Still, he promised to cut debt to about $20 billion by the end of 2004.

For the quarter, AOL reported a net loss of $44.9 billion, or $10.04 a share, compared with a loss of $1.8 billion, or 41 cents a share, a year earlier. Revenue rose 10% to $11.4 billion.

The Time Warner businesses accounted for all the growth in the fourth quarter. America Online's EBITDA fell 32% to $474 million. The number of world-wide subscribers declined to 35.2 million on December 31 from 35.3 million on September 30. In contrast, AOL's cable networks boosted EBITDA 46% to $661 million, led by a strong performance from Home Box Office. AOL's film unit, which includes Warner Bros. and New Line Cinema, performed well, helped by hit film franchises such as the _Harry Potter_ and _Lord of the Rings_ series.

Mr. Turner's departure is likely to prompt speculation about some of his intentions. Mr. Turner had a big falling out with Mr. Levin and has publicly stated that he should have never agreed to the merger. Mr. Parsons, however, lured him back into to the fold. Mr. Turner is close to two other influential shareholders, Gordon Crawford, a senior vice president at money managers Capital Group's Capital Research & Management, and with cable pioneer John Malone. The three played a role in Mr. Case's departure, and if the troika team up again, they could spell trouble for Mr. Parsons and could try to oust board members who hail from America Online.

However, his leaving could remove one major hurdle to the merger talks between the cable news channel CNN and the news division of The Walt Disney Company's ABC network. Those talks, which heated up last year, have since cooled. While Mr. Turner has not publicly blasted the talks, he is known to be territorial when it comes to CNN. In an interview set to air next week on the television program _60 Minutes II_ , Mr. Turner said his vice chairman's post had been "kind of a title without portfolio... like the emperor of Japan."

* * *

"Spacey Splashes into _Sea_ ," by Cathy Dunkley, _Variety_ , February 19, 2003  
  
After five years of planning, Kevin Spacey is darin’ to play Darin.  
  
The actor will star in and direct _Beyond the Sea_ , a Bobby Darin biopic that begins lensing in June; he will also produce with Bernie Morris, Mark Damon and Sammy Lee. Stewart Hall and Joanne Horowitz will serve as executive producers of the pic. Damon’s MDP Worldwide has come aboard to fully finance and produce with Spacey’s production shingle Trigger Street. MGM is in negotiations to acquire North American distribution rights to the pic, though no deal has yet been inked. _Sea_ had once been planned as a Warner Bros. pic, but Spacey bought the rights from WB two years ago. Producer is Arthur Friedman, who has worked on the project for 12 years.  
  
Spacey told _Daily Variety_ on Wednesday that the budget will be “considerable.” The film covers the 1940s-’70s, “but,” per the actor, “it’s not a linear story. And not a docudrama.” Details of the film’s soundtrack must still be worked out, as must rights issues surrounding Darin’s original recordings. But Spacey will sing songs including “Dream Lover,” “Mack the Knife,” “Splish Splash” and the title tune. “Kevin’s passion for _Beyond the Sea_ is overwhelming and has consumed us as well,” MDP Worldwide chairman-CEO Mark Damon said.  
  
It’s been five years since Spacey first expressed an interest in bringing Darin’s life to the screen. “They say I’m too old,” he lamented at that time — Spacey was then 38. Darin died at 37 when his heart gave out following heart surgery. Asked if he’s too old now, Spacey laughed, “Bobby always looked a little older — but if I waited any more I might be too old.”  
  
Spacey proved his ability to imitate Darin on the _Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil_ album, singing “That Old Black Magic” as a tribute to the singer. Spacey repeated when he sang during his hosting stint on S _aturday Night Live_. Three years ago, Spacey said he planned to take six months off to devote to singing ahead of the Darin biopic, but added he would do the film “only when it can be done the right way” ( _Daily Variety_ , March 14, 2000).  
  
On Oct. 24, 2000, Spacey brought down the house when he sang two songs a la Darin before an all-industry party created to involve young Hollywood in the MPTV Country House & Hospital. Since then, the actor has continued to work with Darin’s conductor Roger Kellaway. Spacey has continually emphasized that he wanted the Darin family to know he would treat the project “with respect.” He sent letters to that effect to Darin’s wife Sandra Dee and their son Dodd. They will be portrayed in the film, which will have “many other good roles as well,” Spacey said.  
  
Darin was told that he would not live past his late teens due to a severe heart condition. He set out to prove he could become a showbiz legend by age 25 and in fact became a big star in the music industry as well as finding success in nightclubs and in films.  
  
Over the years, the _Sea_ project attracted writer Lewis Colick and writer-director James Toback, among others. Spacey, who’s repped by William Morris, said the film won’t conflict with his new job as artistic director of the Old Vic in London, a job that doesn’t start until fall 2004. _Sea_ marks the second pic between Trigger Street and MDP after _The United States of Leland_. That pic was helmed by Matthew Ryan Hoge, and was acquired by Paramount Classics at this year’s Sundance Film Festival.

* * *

"World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc. To Close Restaurant," BusinessWire, February 25, 2003

STAMFORD, CT. - World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc. announced that effective today, it will close its restaurant located in New York City.

"We have ceased the restaurant operation as of today, but we will continue to operate the retail store until April 27, 2003," said Linda E. McMahon, Chief Executive Officer. "We will seek to sublease the facility and will work closely with the landlord's organization in this effort."

"We are reallocating resources to the continued growth of our global business, rather than focusing on a single, site-specific and local project," said Linda McMahon, Chief Executive Officer. "We will build shareholder value by continuing to create WWE branded products and programming which we can distribute on a worldwide basis."

WWE issued its third fiscal quarter earnings release today and will host a conference call Wednesday, February 26, 2003, at 11:00 AM ET.

Mrs. McMahon lauded the effort of the restaurant's current management and employees. "We would like to personally thank each and every employee at the restaurant and at WWE for their hard work, commitment and passion for the business."

World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc. (NYSE: WWE) is an integrated media and entertainment company headquartered in Stamford, Connecticut, with offices in New York, Los Angeles, Toronto and London. Additional information on the company can be found at wwe.com and corporate.wwe.com.

* * *

"The Talented Mr. Epstein," by Vicky Ward, _Variety Fair_ , March 2003 **  
  
**_Lately, Jeffrey Epstein’s high-flying style has been drawing oohs and aahs: the bachelor financier lives in New York’s largest private residence, claims to take only billionaires as clients, and flies celebrities including Bill Clinton and Kevin Spacey on his Boeing 727. But pierce his air of mystery and the picture changes. Vicky Ward explores Epstein’s investment career, his ties to retail magnate Leslie Wexner, and his complicated past._  
  
On Manhattan’s Upper East Side, home to some of the most expensive real estate on earth, exists the crown jewel of the city’s residential town houses. With its 15-foot-high oak door, huge arched windows, and _nine_ floors, it sits on—or, rather, commands—the block of 71st Street between Fifth and Madison Avenues. Almost ludicrously out of proportion with its four- and five-story neighbors, it seems more like an institution than a house. This is perhaps not surprising—until 1989 it was the Birch Wathen private school. Now it is said to be Manhattan’s largest private residence.  
  
Inside, amid the flurry of menservants attired in sober black suits and pristine white gloves, you feel you have stumbled into someone’s private Xanadu. This is no mere rich person’s home, but a high-walled, eclectic, imperious fantasy that seems to have no boundaries.  
  
The entrance hall is decorated not with paintings but with row upon row of individually framed eyeballs; these, the owner tells people with relish, were imported from England, where they were made for injured soldiers. Next comes a marble foyer, which does have a painting, in the manner of Jean Dubuffet … but the host coyly refuses to tell visitors who painted it. In any case, guests are like pygmies next to the nearby twice-life-size sculpture of a naked African warrior.  
  
Despite its eccentricity the house is curiously impersonal, the statement of someone who wants to be known for the scale of his possessions. Its occupant, financier Jeffrey Epstein, 50, admits to friends that he likes it when people think of him this way. A good-looking man, resembling Ralph Lauren, with thick gray-white hair and a weathered face, he usually dresses in jeans, knit shirts, and loafers. He tells people he bought the house because he knew he “could never live anywhere bigger.” He thinks 51,000 square feet is an appropriately large space for someone like himself, who deals mostly in large concepts—especially large sums of money.  
  
Guests are invited to lunch or dinner at the town house—Epstein usually refers to the former as “tea,” since he likes to eat bite-size morsels and drink copious quantities of Earl Grey. (He does not touch alcohol or tobacco.) Tea is served in the “leather room,” so called because of the cordovan-colored fabric on the walls. The chairs are covered in a leopard print, and on the wall hangs a huge, Oriental fantasy of a woman holding an opium pipe and caressing a snarling lionskin. Under her gaze, plates of finger sandwiches are delivered to Epstein and guests by the menservants in white gloves.  
  
Upstairs, to the right of a spiral staircase, is the “office,” an enormous gallery spanning the width of the house. Strangely, it holds no computer. Computers belong in the “computer room” (a smaller room at the back of the house), Epstein has been known to say. The office features a gilded desk (which Epstein tells people belonged to banker J.P. Morgan), 18th-century black lacquered Portuguese cabinets, and a nine-foot ebony Steinway “D” grand. On the desk, a paperback copy of the Marquis de Sade’s _The Misfortunes of Virtue_ was recently spotted. Covering the floor, Epstein has explained, “is the largest Persian rug you’ll ever see in a private home—so big, it must have come from a mosque.” Amid such splendor, much of which reflects the work of the French decorator Alberto Pinto, who has worked for Jacques Chirac and the royal families of Jordan and Saudi Arabia, there is one particularly startling oddity: a stuffed black poodle, standing atop the grand piano. “No decorator would ever tell you to do that,” Epstein brags to visitors. “But I want people to think what it means to stuff a dog.” People can’t help but feel it’s Epstein’s way of saying that he always has the last word.  
  
In addition to the town house, Epstein lives in what is reputed to be the largest private dwelling in New Mexico, on an $18 million, 7500-acre ranch which he named “Zorro.” “It makes the town house look like a shack,” Epstein has said. He also owns Little St. James, a 70-acre island in the U.S. Virgin Islands, where the main house is currently being renovated by Edward Tuttle, a designer of the Amanresorts. There is also a $6.8 million house in Palm Beach, Florida, and a fleet of aircraft: a Gulfstream IV, a helicopter, and a Boeing 727, replete with trading room, on which Epstein recently flew President Clinton, actors Chris Tucker and Kevin Spacey, supermarket magnate Ron Burkle, Lew Wasserman’s grandson, Casey Wasserman, and a few others, on a mission to explore the problems of AIDS and economic development in Africa.  
  
Epstein is charming, but he doesn’t let the charm slip into his eyes. They are steely and calculating, giving some hint at the steady whir of machinery running behind them. “Let’s play chess,” he said to me, after refusing to give an interview for this article. “You be white. You get the first move.” It was an appropriate metaphor for a man who seems to feel he can win no matter what the advantage of the other side. _His_ advantage is that no one really seems to know him or his history completely or what his arsenal actually consists of. He has carefully engineered it so that he remains one of the few truly baffling mysteries among New York’s moneyed world. People know snippets, but few know the whole.  
  
“He’s very enigmatic,” says Rosa Monckton, the former CEO of Tiffany & Co. in the UK and a close friend since the early 1980s. “You think you know him and then you peel off another ring of the onion skin and there’s something else extraordinary underneath. He never reveals his hand…. He’s a classic iceberg. What you see is not what you get.” Even acquaintances sense a curious dichotomy: Yes, he lives like a “modern maharaja,” as Leah Kleman, one of his art dealers, puts it. Yet he is fastidiously, almost obsessively private—he lists himself in the phone book under a pseudonym. He rarely attends society gatherings or weddings or funerals; he considers eating in restaurants like “eating on the subway”—i.e., something he’d never do. There are many women in his life, mostly young, but there is no one of them to whom he has been able to commit. He describes his most public companion of the last decade, Ghislaine Maxwell, 41, the daughter of the late, disgraced media baron Robert Maxwell, as simply his “best friend.” He says she is not on his payroll, but she seems to organize much of his life—recently she was making telephone inquiries to find a California-based yoga instructor for him. (Epstein is still close to his two other long-term girlfriends, Paula Heil Fisher, a former associate of his at the brokerage firm Bear Stearns and now an opera producer, and Eva Andersson Dubin, a doctor and onetime model. He tells people that when a relationship is over the girlfriend “moves up, not down,” to friendship status.)  
  
Some of the businessmen who dine with him at his home—they include newspaper publisher Mort Zuckerman, banker Louis Ranieri, Revlon chairman Ronald Perelman, real-estate tycoon Leon Black, former Microsoft executive Nathan Myhrvold, Tom Pritzker (of Hyatt Hotels), and music industry mogul and DreamWorks cofounder David Geffen (Epstein also coyly refuses to admit or deny that disgraced Miramax founders Bob and Harvey Weinstein have ever been guests)—sometimes seem not all that clear as to what he actually does to earn his millions. (A peek into his little black book shows that he also has contacts such as Michael Jackson, Alec Baldwin, Tom Barrack, Tony Blair, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Rupert Murdoch, Katie Couric, Woody Allen, Richard Branson, Mohammad bin Salman, George Stephanopoulos, and various Kennedys, Rockefellers and Rothschilds. The late Donald Trump is also still listed in the book as well, and he was known to often dine with Epstein both in New York and in Palm Beach.) Certainly, you won’t find Epstein’s transactions written about on Bloomberg or talked about in the trading rooms. “The trading desks don’t seem to know him. It’s unusual for animals _that_ big not to leave any footprints in the snow,” says a high-level investment manager.  
  
Unlike such fund managers as George Soros and Stanley Druckenmiller, whose client lists and stock maneuverings act as their calling cards, Epstein keeps all his deals and clients secret, bar one client: billionaire Leslie Wexner, the respected chairman of Limited Brands. Epstein insists that ever since he left Bear Stearns in 1981 he has managed money only for billionaires—who depend on him for discretion. “I was the only person crazy enough, or arrogant enough, or misplaced enough, to make my limit a billion dollars or more,” he tells people freely. According to him, the flat fees he receives from his clients, combined with his skill at playing the currency markets “with very large sums of money,” have afforded him the lifestyle he enjoys today.  
  
Why do billionaires choose him as their trustee? Because the problems of the mega-rich, he tells people, are different from yours and mine, and his unique philosophy is central to understanding those problems: “Very few people need any more money when they have a billion dollars. The key is not to have it do harm more than anything else…. You don’t want to lose your money.”

A working day for Epstein starts at 5 AM, when he gets up and scours the world markets on his Bloomberg screen - each of his houses, as well as the 727, is equipped with the necessary hardware for him to wake up, roll out of bed, and start trading. He will put some calls in to his private banker at JPMorgan to get a reading as to how wealthy investors - the best gauge of market sentiment, he believes - are reacting to the market's movements. Then he will call currency traders in Europe. On a given day, he will spend ten hours or so on the phone. Given the huge sums he has to invest, he focuses on assets with extremely high liquidity, like currencies - though he dabbles in commodities and real estate as well. Those who know him say he is an impulsive, quick-to-change-his-mind trader, still governed by Ace Greenberg's trader's maxim: If the stock is down 10 percent, sell it. He has been on the short side of the Brazilian real, and those close to him say bets there have paid off in spades. He recently took a long position on the euro before its rebound on the basis that Europeans were too proud to see their currency sink any lower against the dollar. His next targets: an across-the-board short of the German stock exchange and a possible attack on the Hong Kong dollar peg in light of the recent disclosure of North Korea's nuclear-weapons program. None of this is investment rocket science, but getting the direction and the timing right, no matter how conventional the investment idea, can spin large money for an investor. Before taking a big position, Epstein will usually fly to the country in question.  
  
He has likened his job to that of an architect—more specifically, one who specializes in remodeling: “I always describe [a billionaire] as someone who started out in a small home and as he became wealthier had add-ons. He added on another addition, he built a room over the garage … until you have a house that is usually a mess…. It’s a large house that has been put together over time where no one could foretell the financial future and their accompanying needs.” He makes it sound as though his job combines the roles of real-estate agent, accountant, lawyer, money manager, trustee, and confidant. But, as with Jay Gatsby, myths and rumor swirl around Epstein.  
  
Here are some of the hard facts about Epstein—ones that he doesn’t mind people knowing: He grew up middle-class in Brooklyn. His father worked for the city’s parks department. His parents viewed education as “the way out” for him and his younger brother, Mark, now working in real estate. Jeffrey started to play the piano—for which he maintains a passion—at five, and he went to Brooklyn’s Lafayette High School. He was good at mathematics, and in his early 20s he got a job teaching physics and math at Dalton, the elite Manhattan private school. While there he began tutoring the son of Bear Stearns chairman Ace Greenberg and was friendly with a daughter of Greenberg’s. Soon he went to Bear Stearns, where, under the mentorship of both Greenberg and current Bear Stearns CEO James Cayne, he did well enough to become a limited partner—a rung beneath full partner. He abruptly departed in 1981 because, he has said, he wanted to run his own business.  
  
Thereafter the details recede into shadow. A few of the handful of current friends who have known him since the early 1980s recall that he used to tell them he was a “bounty hunter,” recovering lost or stolen money for the government or for very rich people. He has a license to carry a firearm. For the last 15 years, he’s been running his business, J. Epstein & Co. (which he renamed the Financial Trust Corporation in 1996). The premise behind it was simple: Epstein would manage the individual and family fortunes of clients with $1 billion or more. Which is where the mystery deepens. Because according to the lore, Epstein, in 1982, immediately began collecting clients. There were no road shows, no whiz-bang marketing demos - just this: Jeff Epstein was open for business for those with $1 billion–plus. His firm would be different, too. He was not here just to offer investment advice; he saw himself as the financial architect of every aspect of his client's wealth - from investments to philanthropy to tax planning to security to assuaging the guilt and burdens that large sums of inherited wealth can bring on. "I want people to understand the power, the responsibility, and the burden of their money," he said to a colleague at the time. As a teacher at Dalton, he had witnessed firsthand the troubled attitudes of some of the poor little rich kids under his charge; at Bear, he had come to the realization that, counterintuitively, the more money you had, the more anxious you became. For a middle-class kid from Brooklyn, it just didn't make sense.

From the get-go, his business was successful. But the conditions for investing with Epstein were steep: He would take total control of the billion dollars, charge a flat fee, and assume power of attorney to do whatever he thought was necessary to advance his client's financial cause. And he remained true to the $1 billion entry fee. According to people who know him, if you were worth $700 million and felt the need for the services of Epstein and Co., you would receive a not-so-polite no-thank-you from Epstein. It's nice work if you can get it. Epstein runs a lean operation, and those close to him say that his actual staff numbers around 150 and is purely administrative. When it comes to putting these billions to work in the markets, it is Epstein himself making all the investment calls - there are no analysts or portfolio managers, just twenty accountants to keep the wheels greased and a bevy of assistants - many of them conspicuously attractive young women - to organize his hectic life. So assuming, conservatively, a fee of .5 percent (he takes no commissions or percentages) on $15 billion, that makes for a management fee of $75 million a year straight into Jeff Epstein's pocket. Nice work indeed.

Since Leslie Wexner appeared in his life—Epstein has said this was in 1986; others say it was in 1989, at the earliest—he has gradually, in a way that has not generally made headlines, come to be accepted by the Establishment. He’s a member of various commissions and councils: he is on the Trilateral Commission, the Council on Foreign Relations, and the Institute of International Education.

His current fan club extends to Cayne, Henry Rosovsky, the former dean of Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences, and Larry Summers, Harvard’s current president. Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz says, “I’m on my 20th book…. The only person outside of my immediate family that I send drafts to is Jeffrey.” Real-estate developer and philanthropist Marshall Rose, who has worked with Epstein on projects in New Albany, Ohio, for Wexner, says, “He digests and decodes the information very rapidly, which is to me terrific because we have shorter meetings.”

Also on the list of admirers are former senator George Mitchell and a gaggle of distinguished scientists, most of whom Epstein has helped fund in recent years. They include Nobel Prize winners Gerald Edelman and Murray Gell-Mann, and mathematical biologist Martin Nowak. When these men describe Epstein, they talk about “energy” and “curiosity,” as well as a love for theoretical physics that they don’t ordinarily find in laymen. Gell-Mann rather sweetly mentions that “there are always pretty ladies around” when he goes to dinner _chez_ Epstein, and he’s under the impression that Epstein’s clients include the Queen of England. Both Nowak and Dershowitz were thrilled to find themselves shaking the hand of a man named “Andrew” in Epstein’s house. “Andrew” turned out to be Prince Andrew, who subsequently arranged to sit in the back of Dershowitz’s law class.

Epstein gets annoyed when anyone suggests that Wexner “made him.” “I had really rich clients before,” he has said. Yet he does not deny that he and Wexner have a special relationship. Epstein sees it as a partnership of equals. “People have said it’s like we have one brain between two of us: each has a side.”

“I think we both possess the skill of seeing patterns,” says Wexner. “But Jeffrey sees patterns in politics and financial markets, and I see patterns in lifestyle and fashion trends. My skills are not in investment strategy, and, as everyone who knows Jeffrey knows, his are not in fashion and design. We frequently discuss world trends as each of us sees them.”

By the time Epstein met Wexner, the latter was a retail legend who had built a $3 billion empire—one that now includes Victoria’s Secret, Express, Lane Bryant, Henri Benedel and Bath & Body Works—from $5000 lent him by his aunt. “Wexner saw in Jeffrey the type of person who had the potential to realize his [Jeffrey’s] dreams,” says someone who has worked closely with both men. “He gave Jeffrey the ball, and Jeffrey hit it out of the park.”

Wexner, through a trust, bought the town house in which Epstein now lives for a reported $13.2 million in 1989. In 1993, Wexner married Abigail Koppel, a 31-year-old lawyer, and the newlyweds relocated to Ohio; in 1996, Epstein moved into the town house. Public documents suggest that the house is still owned by the trust that bought it, but Epstein has said that he now owns the house.

Wexner trusts Epstein so completely that he has assigned him the power of fiduciary over all of his private trusts and foundations, says a source close to Wexner. In 1992, Epstein even persuaded Wexner to put him on the board of the Wexner Foundation in place of Wexner’s ailing mother. Bella Wexner recovered and demanded to be reinstated. Epstein has said they settled by splitting the foundation in two. (However, Epstein did not play a role in Wexner's most recent deal: a few months ago, he joined George Soros, Warren Buffett, NBA superstar Michael Jordan, and several VC firms in donating fresh billions to Kurt Cobain and Charlize Theron's production company Springbok Productions, and rumors of Theron doing ad campaigns for Victoria's Secret and/or Bath & Body Works in exchange have been flying.)

Epstein does not care that he comes between family members. In fact, he sees it as his job. He tells people, “I am there to represent my client, and if my client needs protecting—sometimes even from his own family—then it’s often better that people hate me, not the client.”

“You’ve probably heard I’m vicious in my representation of my clients,” he tells people proudly; Leah Kleman describes his haggling over art prices as something like a scene out of the movie _Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome._ Even a former mentor says he’s seen “the dark side” of Epstein, and a Bear Stearns source recalls a meeting in which Epstein chewed out a team making a presentation for Wexner as being so brutal as to be “irresponsible.”

One reporter, in fact, received three threats from Epstein while preparing a piece. They were delivered in a jocular tone, but the message was clear: There will be trouble for your family if I don’t like the article.

On the other hand, Epstein is clearly very generous with friends. Joe Pagano, an Aspen-based venture capitalist, who has known Epstein since before his Bear Stearns days, can’t say enough nice things: “I have a boy who’s dyslexic, and Jeffrey’s gotten close to him over the years…. Jeffrey got him into music. He bought him his first piano. And then as he got to school he had difficulty … in studying … so Jeffrey got him interested in taking flying lessons.”

Rosa Monckton recalls Epstein telling her that her daughter, Domenica, who suffers from Down's syndrome, needed the sun, and that Rosa should feel free to bring her to his house in Palm Beach anytime.

Some friends remember that in the late '80s Epstein would offer to upgrade the airline tickets of good friends by affixing first-class stickers; the only problem was that the stickers turned out to be unofficial. Sometimes the technique worked, but other times it didn’t, and the unwitting recipients found themselves exiled to coach. (Epstein has claimed that he paid for the upgrades, and had no knowledge of the stickers.) Many of those who benefited from Epstein’s largesse claim that his generosity comes with no strings attached. “I never felt he wanted anything from me in return,” says one old friend, who received a first-class upgrade.

Epstein is known about town as a man who loves women—lots of them, mostly young. Model types have been heard saying they are full of gratitude to Epstein for flying them around, and he is a familiar face to many of the Victoria’s Secret girls. One young woman recalls being summoned by Ghislaine Maxwell to a concert at Epstein’s town house, where the women seemed to outnumber the men by far. “These were not women you’d see at Upper East Side dinners,” the woman recalls. “Many seemed foreign and dressed a little bizarrely.” This same guest also attended a cocktail party thrown by Maxwell that Prince Andrew attended, which was filled, she says, with young Russian models. “Some of the guests were horrified,” the woman says. "And they certainly have good reason to be, because after all the sexual assault horror stories that have been coming out lately, you can't help but wonder if that's what's happening, but you don't want to jump the gun, because you don't want to crucify an innocent party."

“He’s reckless,” says a former business associate, “and he’s gotten more so. Money does that to you. He’s breaking the oath he made to himself—that he would never do anything that would expose him in the media. Right now, in the wake of the publicity following his trip with Clinton, someone who managed to just barely extricate himself from allegations of being a sexual predator and who is now being associated with someone who loves young women, it doesn't look good for either of them. As to Jeffrey, he must be in a very difficult place, especially now with how things are unfolding in the aftermath of the revelations of Weinstein, the late Donald Trump, Jimmy Savile, and so on.”

According to SEC and other legal documents unearthed by _VANITY FAIR,_ Epstein may have good reason to keep his past cloaked in secrecy: his real mentor, it might seem, was not Leslie Wexner but Steven Jude Hoffenberg, 57, who, for a few months before the SEC sued to freeze his assets in 1993, was trying to buy the _New York Post._ He is currently incarcerated in the Federal Medical Center in Devens, Massachusetts, serving a 20-year sentence for bilking investors out of more than $450 million in one of the largest Ponzi schemes in American history.

When Epstein met Hoffenberg in London in the 1980s, the latter was the charismatic, audacious head of the Towers Financial Corporation, a collection agency that was supposed to buy debts that people owed to hospitals, banks, and phone companies. But Hoffenberg began using company funds to pay off earlier investors and service a lavish lifestyle that included a mansion on Long Island, homes on Manhattan’s Sutton Place and in Florida, and a fleet of cars and planes.

Hoffenberg and Epstein had much in common. Both were smart and obsessed with making money. Both were from Brooklyn. According to Hoffenberg, the two men were introduced by Douglas Leese, a defense contractor. Epstein has said they were introduced by John Mitchell, the late attorney general.

Epstein had been running International Assets Group Inc. (IAG), a consulting company, out of his apartment in the Solo building on East 66th Street in New York. Though he has claimed that he managed money for billionaires only, in a 1989 deposition he testified that he spent 80 percent of his time assisting people recover stolen money from fraudulent brokers and lawyers. He was also not above entering into risky, tax-sheltered oil and gas deals with much smaller investors. A lawsuit that Michael Stroll, the former head of Williams Electronics Inc., filed against Epstein shows that in 1982 IAG received an investment from Stroll of $450,000, which Epstein put into oil. In 1984 Stroll asked for his money back; four years later he had received only $10,000. Stroll lost the suit, after Epstein claimed in court, among other things, that the check for $10,000 was for a horse he’d bought from Stroll. “My net worth never exceeded four and a half million dollars,” Stroll has said.

Hoffenberg, says a close friend, “really liked Jeffrey…. Jeffrey has a way of getting under your skin, and he was under Hoffenberg’s.” Also appealing to Hoffenberg were Epstein’s social connections; they included oil mogul Cece Wang (father of the designer Vera) and Mohan Murjani, whose clothing company grew into Gloria Vanderbilt Jeans. Epstein lived large even then. One friend recalls that when he took Canadian heiress Wendy Belzberg on a date he hired a Rolls-Royce especially for the occasion. (Epstein has claimed he owned it.)

In 1987, Hoffenberg, according to sources, set Epstein up in the offices he still occupies in the Villard House, on Madison Avenue, across a courtyard from the restaurant Le Cirque. Hoffenberg hired his new protégé as a consultant at $25,000 a month, and the relationship flourished. “They traveled everywhere together—on Hoffenberg’s plane, all around the world, they were always together,” says a source. Hoffenberg has claimed that Epstein confided in him, saying, for example, that he had left Bear Stearns in 1981 after he was discovered executing “illegal operations.”

Several of Epstein’s Bear Stearns contemporaries recall that Epstein left the company very suddenly. Within the company there were rumors also that he was involved in a technical infringement, and it was thought that the executive committee asked that he resign after his two supporters, Ace Greenberg and Jimmy Cayne, were outnumbered. Greenberg says he can’t recall this; Cayne denies it happened, and Epstein has denied it as well. “Jeffrey Epstein left Bear Stearns of his own volition,” says Cayne. “It was never suggested that he leave by any member of management, and management never looked into any improprieties by him. Jeffrey said specifically, ‘I don’t want to work for anybody else. I want to work for myself.’” Yet, this is not the story that Epstein told to the SEC in 1981 and to lawyers in a 1989 deposition involving a civil business case in Philadelphia.

In 1981 the SEC's Jonathan Harris and Robert Blackburn took Epstein’s testimony and that of other Bear Stearns employees in part of what became a protracted case about insider trading around a tender offer placed on March 11, 1981, by the Seagram Company Ltd. for St. Joe Minerals Corp. Ultimately several Italian and Swiss investors were found guilty, including Italian financier Giuseppe Tome, who had used his relationship with Seagram owner Edgar Bronfman, Sr. to obtain information about the tender offer.

After the tender offer was announced, the SEC began investigating trades involving St. Joe at Bear Stearns and other firms. Epstein resigned from Bear Stearns on March 12. The SEC was tipped off that Epstein had information on insider trading at Bear Stearns, and it was therefore obliged to question him. In his SEC testimony, given on April 1, 1981, Epstein claimed that he had found “offensive” the way Bear Stearns management had handled a disciplinary action following its discovery that he had committed a possible “Reg D” violation—evidently he had lent money to his closest friend. (In the 1989 deposition he said that he’d lent approximately $20,000 to Warren Eisenstein, to buy stock.) Such an action could have been considered improper, although Epstein claimed he had not realized this until afterward.

According to Epstein, Bear Stearns management had questioned him about the loan around March 4. The questioners, Epstein said, were Michael (Mickey) Tarnopol and Alvin Einbender. In his 1989 deposition Epstein recalled that the partner who had made an “issue” of the matter was Marvin Davidson. On March 9, Epstein said, he had met with Tarnopol and Einbender again, and the two partners told him that the executive committee had weighed the offense, together with previous “carelessness” over expenses, and he would be fined $2500.

“There was discussion whether, in fact, I had ever put in an airline ticket for someone else and not myself and I said that it was possible, … since my secretary handles my expenses,” Epstein told the SEC In his 1989 testimony he stated that the “Reg D” incident had cost him a shot at partnership that year.

What the SEC seemed to be especially interested in was whether there was a connection between Epstein’s leaving and the alleged insider trading in St. Joe Minerals by other people at Bear Stearns:

Q: Sir, are you aware that certain rumors may have been circulating around your firm in connection with your reasons for leaving the firm?  
A: I’m aware that there were many rumors.  
Q: What were the rumors you heard?  
A: Nothing to do with St. Joe.  
Q: Can you relate what you heard?  
A: It was having to do with an illicit affair with a secretary.  
Q: Have you heard any other rumors suggesting that you had made a presentation or communication to the Executive Committee concerning alleged improprieties by other members or employees of Bear Stearns?  
A: I, in fact, have heard that rumor, but it’s been from Mr. Harris in our conversation last week.  
Q: Have you heard it from anyone else?  
A: No.

A little later the interview focuses on James Cayne:

Q: Did you ever hear while you were at Bear Stearns that Mr. Cayne may have trader or insider information in connection with St. Joe Minerals Corporation?  
Q: Did Mr. Cayne ever have any conversation with you about St. Joe Minerals?  
Q: Did you happen to overhear any conversations between Mr. Cayne and anyone else regarding St. Joe Minerals?

And still later in the questioning comes this exchange:

Q: Have you had any type of business dealings with Mr. Cayne?  
A: There’s no relationship with Bear Stearns.  
Q: Pardon?  
A: Other than Bear Stearns, no.  
Q: Have you been a participant in any type of business venture with Mr. Cayne?  
Q: Do you have any expectation of participating in any business venture with Mr. Cayne?  
Q: Have you had any business participations with Mr. Theram?  
A: No; nor do I anticipate any.  
Q: Mr. Epstein, did anyone at Bear Stearns tell you in words or substance that you should not divulge anything about St. Joe Minerals to the staff of the Securities and Exchange Commission?  
Q: Has anyone indicated to you in any way, either directly or indirectly, in words or substance, that your compensation for this past year or any future monies coming to you from Bear Stearns will be contingent upon your not divulging information to the Securities and Exchange Commission?  
A: No.

Despite the circumstances of Epstein’s leaving, Bear Stearns agreed to pay him his annual bonus—which he anticipated as being approximately $100,000.

The SEC never brought any charges against anyone at Bear Stearns for insider trading in St. Joe, but its questioning seems to indicate that it was skeptical of Epstein’s answers. Some sources have wondered why, if he was such a big producer at Bear Stearns, he would have given it up over a mere $2500 fine.

Certainly the years after Epstein left the firm were not obviously prosperous ones. His luck didn’t seem to change until he met Hoffenberg.

One of Epstein’s first assignments for Hoffenberg was to mastermind doomed bids to take over Pan American World Airways in 1987 and Emery Air Freight Corp. in 1988. Hoffenberg claimed in a 1993 hearing before a grand jury in Illinois that Epstein came up with the idea of financing these bids through Towers’s acquisition of two ailing Illinois insurance companies, Associated Life and United Fire. “He was hired by us to work on the securities side of the insurance companies and Towers Financial, supposedly to make a profit for us and for the companies,” Hoffenberg reportedly told the grand jury. He also alleged that Epstein was the “technician,” executing the schemes, although, having no broker’s license, he had to rely on others to make the trades. Much of Hoffenberg’s subsequent testimony in his criminal case has proven to be false, and Epstein has claimed he was merely asked how the bids could be accomplished and has said he had nothing to do with the financing of them. Yet Richard Allen, the former treasurer of United Fire, recalls seeing Epstein two or three times at the company. He and another executive say they had direct dealing with Epstein over the finances. And in his deposition of 1989, Epstein stated that he was the one who executed “all” Hoffenberg’s instructions to buy and sell the stock. He called it “making the orders.” He could not recall whether he had chosen the brokers used.

To win approval from the Illinois insurance regulators for Towers’s acquisition of the companies, Hoffenberg promised to inject $3 million of new capital into them. In fact, in his grand-jury testimony Hoffenberg claimed that he, his chief operating officer, Mitchell Brater, and Epstein came up with a scheme to steal $3 million of the insurance companies’ bonds to buy Pan Am and Emery stock. “Jeffrey Epstein and Mitch Brater arranged the various brokerage accounts for the bonds to be placed with in New York, and I think one in Chicago, Rodman & Renshaw,” Hoffenberg reportedly said. Then, said Hoffenberg, while making it appear as though they were investing the bonds in much safer financial instruments, they used them as collateral to buy the stock. “Epstein was the person in charge of the transactions, and Mitchell Brater was assisting him with it in coordination on behalf of the insurance companies’ money,” Hoffenberg claimed at the time.

At one point, according to Hoffenberg, a broker forged the documents necessary for a $1.8 million check to be written on insurance-company funds. The check was used to buy more stock in the takeover targets. Meanwhile, in order to throw the insurance regulators off, the $1.8 million was reported as being safely invested in a money-market account.

United Fire’s former chief financial officer Daniel Payton confirms part of Hoffenberg’s account. He says he recalls making one or two telephone calls to Epstein (at Hoffenberg’s direction) about the missing bonds. “He said, ‘Oh, yeah, they still exist.’ But we found out later that he had sold those assets … leveraged them … [and] used some margin account to take some positions in … Emery and Pan Am,” says Payton.

Epstein’s extraordinary creativity was, according to Hoffenberg, responsible for the purchase by the insurance companies of a $500,000 bond, with no money down. “Epstein created a great scheme to purchase a $500,000 treasury bond that would not be shown … [as] margined or collateralized,” he reportedly told the grand jury. “It looked like it was free and clear but it actually wasn’t,” he said.

Epstein has denied he ever had any dealings with anyone from the insurance companies. But Richard Allen says he recalls talking to Epstein at Hoffenberg’s direction and telling him it was urgent they retrieve the missing bonds for a state examination. According to Allen, Epstein said, “We’ll get them back.” He had “kind of a flippant attitude,” says Allen. “They never came back.”

Epstein, according to Hoffenberg, also came up with a scheme to manipulate the price of Emery Freight stock in an attempt to minimize the losses that occurred when Hoffenberg’s bid went wrong and the share price began to fall. This was alleged to have involved multiple clients’ accounts controlled by Epstein.

Eventually, in 1991, insurance regulators in Illinois sued Hoffenberg. He settled the case, and Epstein, who was only a paid consultant, was never deposed or accused of any wrongdoing. Barry Gross, the attorney who was handling the suit for the regulators, says of Epstein, “He was very elusive…. It was hard to really track him down. There were a substantial number of checks for significant dollars that were paid to him, I remember…. He was this character we never got a handle on. Again we presumed that he was involved with the Pan Am and Emery run that Hoffenberg made, but we never got a chance to depose him.”

“From the government’s discovery in the main sentencing against Hoffenberg it would seem the government was perhaps a bit lazy,” says David Lewis, who represented Mitchell Brater. “They went for what they knew they could get … and that was the fraudulent promissory notes [i.e., the much larger and unrelated part of Hoffenberg’s fraud, based in New York State]…. What they couldn’t get, they didn’t bother with.”

Another lawyer involved in the criminal prosecution of Hoffenberg says, “In a criminal investigation like that, when there is a guilty plea, to be quick and dirty about it, discovery is always incomplete…. They don’t have to line up witnesses; they don’t have to learn every fact that might come out on cross-examination.”

Epstein was involved with Hoffenberg in other questionable transactions. Financial records show that in 1988 Epstein invested $1.6 million in Riddell Sports Inc., a company that manufactures football helmets. Among his co-investors were the theater mogul Robert Nederlander and attorney Leonard Toboroff. A source close to this transaction claims that Epstein told Nederlander and Toboroff that he had raised his share of the money from a Swiss banker, whose identity they could not be allowed to know. But Hoffenberg has claimed the money came from him, and Towers’s financial statements for that year show a loan to Epstein of $400,000. (Epstein has said he can’t remember the details and has disputed the accuracy of the Towers financial reports.)

Around the same time, Nederlander and Toboroff let Epstein come in with them on a scheme to make money out of Pennwalt, a Pennsylvania chemical company. The plan was to group together with two other parties to take a substantial declared position in the stock. According to a source, Epstein was supposed to help Nederlander and Toboroff raise $15 million. He seemed to fail to find other investors, say those familiar with the deal. (Epstein has said he was merely an investor.) He invested $1 million, which he told his co-investors was his own money. But in his 1989 deposition he said that he put in only $300,000 of his own money. Where did the rest come from? Hoffenberg has said it came from him, in a loan that Nederlander and Toboroff didn’t know about.

Two things happened that alarmed Nederlander and Toboroff. After the group signaled a possible takeover, the Pennwalt management threatened to sue the would-be raiders. Epstein was reluctant initially to give a deposition about his share of the money, telling Toboroff there were “reasons” he didn’t want to. Then, after the opportunity for new investors was closed, co-investors recall Epstein announcing that he’d found one at last: Dick Snyder, then CEO of the publisher Simon & Schuster, who wanted to put up approximately $500,000. (Neither Epstein nor Snyder can now recall the investment. Yet in the 1989 deposition Epstein said that he had recruited Snyder, whom he had met socially, into the deal.)

According to a source, Toboroff and Nederlander told Epstein that Snyder was too late, but, without their realizing it, Hoffenberg has claimed, Snyder wrote a check to Hoffenberg and bought out some of his investment. But then Snyder wanted out.

“Nederlander started to get these irate calls from [Snyder,] who wasn’t part of the deal, saying he was owed all this money,” says someone close to the deal. Toboroff and Nederlander were baffled.

Eventually, a source close to Hoffenberg says, Hoffenberg paid Snyder off.

Just as Nederlander and Toboroff were growing wary of Epstein, he became increasingly involved with Leslie Wexner, whom he had met through insurance executive Robert Meister and his late wife. Epstein has told people that he met Wexner in 1986 in Palm Beach, and that he won his confidence by persuading him not to invest in the stock market, just as the 1987 crash was approaching. His story has subsequently changed. When asked if Wexner knew about his connection to Hoffenberg, Epstein said that he began working for Wexner in 1989, and that “it was certainly not the same time.”

Wherever and whenever it was that Epstein and Wexner actually met, there was an immediate and strong personal chemistry. Wexner says he thinks Epstein is “very smart with a combination of excellent judgment and unusually high standards. Also, he is always a most loyal friend.”

Sources say Epstein proved that he could be useful to Wexner as well, with “fresh” ideas about investments. “Wexner had a couple of bad investments, and Jeffrey cleaned those up right away,” says a former associate of Epstein’s.

Before he signed on with Wexner, Epstein had several meetings with Harold Levin, then head of Wexner Investments, in which he enunciated ideas about currencies that Levin found incomprehensible. “In fact,” says someone who used to work very closely with Wexner, “almost everyone at the Limited wondered who Epstein was; he literally came out of nowhere.”

“Everyone was mystified as to what his appeal was,” says Robert Morosky, a former vice-chairman of the Limited.

Much of Epstein’s work is related to cleaning up, tightening budgets, and efficiencies. One person who worked for Wexner and who saw a contract drawn up between the two men says Epstein is involved in “everything, not just a little here, a little there. Everything!” In addition, he says, “Wexner likes having a hatchet man…. Whenever there is dirty work to be done he’d stick Jeffrey on it…. He has a reputation for being ruthless but he gets the job done.”

Epstein has evidently been asked to fire personal-staff members when needed. “He was that mysterious person that everyone was scared to death of,” says a former employee.

Meanwhile, he is also less than popular with some people outside Wexner’s company with whom he now deals. “He ‘inserted’ himself into the construction process of Leslie Wexner’s yacht…. That resulted in litigation down the road between Mr. Wexner and the shipyard that eventually built the vessel,” says Lars Forsberg, a lawyer whose firm at the time, Dickerson and Reily, was hired to deal with litigation stemming from the construction of Wexner’s _Limitless_ —at 315 feet, one of the largest private yachts in the world. Evidently, Epstein stalled on paying Dickerson and Reily for its work. “It’s probably once or twice in my legal career that I’ve had to sue a client for payment of services that he’d requested and we’d performed … without issue on the performance,” says Forsberg. In the end the matter was settled, but Epstein claims he now has no recollection of it.

The incident is one of a number of disputes Epstein has become embroiled in. Some are for sums so tiny as to be baffling; for instance, Epstein sued investment adviser Herbert Glass, who sold him the Palm Beach house in 1990, for $13,444—Epstein claimed this was owed him for furnishings removed by Glass.

In 1998 the U.S. Attorney’s Office sued Epstein for illegally subletting the former home of the deputy consul general of Iran to attorney Ivan Fisher and others. Epstein paid $15,000 a month in rent to the State Department, but he charged Fisher and his colleagues $20,000. Though the exact terms of the agreement are sealed, the court ruled against Epstein.

Wexner offers some insight into his friend’s combative style. “Many times people confuse winning and losing,” Wexner says. “Jeffrey has the unusual quality of knowing when he is winning. Whether in conversations or negotiations, he always stands back and lets the other person determine the style and manner of the conversation or negotiation. And then he responds in their style. Jeffrey sees it in chivalrous terms. He does not pick a fight, but if there is a fight, he will let you choose your weapon.”

One case is rather more serious. Currently, Citibank is suing Epstein for defaulting on loans from its private-banking arm for $20 million. Epstein claims that Citibank “fraudulently induced” him into borrowing the money for investments. Citibank disputes this charge.

The legal papers for another case offer a rare window into Epstein’s finances. In 1995, Epstein stopped paying rent to his landlord, the nonprofit Municipal Arts Society, for his office in the Villard House. He claimed that they were breaking the terms of the lease by not letting his staff in at night. The case was eventually settled. However, one of the papers filed in this dispute is Epstein’s financial statement for 1988, in which he claimed to be worth $20 million. He listed that he owned $7 million in securities, $1 million in cash, zero in residential property (although he told sources that he had already bought the home in Palm Beach), and $11 million in other assets, including his investment in Riddell. A co-investor in Riddell says: “The company had been bought with a huge amount of debt, and it wasn’t public, so it was meaningless to attach a figure like that to it … the price it cost was about $1.2 million.” The co-investors bought out Epstein’s share in Riddell in 1995 for approximately $3 million. At that time, when Epstein was asked, as a routine matter, to sign a paper guaranteeing he had access to a few million dollars in case of any subsequent disputes over the sale price, Wexner signed for him. Epstein has explained that this was because the co-investors wanted an indemnity against being sued by Wexner. One of the investors calls this “bullshit.”

Epstein’s appointment to the board of New York’s Rockefeller University in 2000 brought him into greater social prominence. Boasting such social names as Nancy Kissinger, Brooke Astor, and Robert Bass, the board also includes such pre-eminent scientists as Nobel laureate Joseph Goldstein. “Epstein was thrilled to be elected,” says someone who knows him.

After one term Epstein resigned. According to _New York_ magazine, this was because he didn’t like to wear a suit to meetings. A spokesperson for the Rockefeller board says Epstein left because he had insufficient time to commit; a board member recalls that he was “arrogant” and “not a good fit.” The spokesperson admits that it is “infrequent” for board members not to be renominated after only one term.

Still, the recent spate of publicity Epstein has inspired does not seem to have fazed him. In November he was spotted in the front row of the Victoria’s Secret fashion show at New York’s Lexington Avenue Armory; around the same time the usual coterie of friends and beautiful women were whisked off to Little St. James (which he tells people has been renamed Little St. Jeff) for a long weekend.

Thanks to Epstein’s introductions, says Martin Nowak, the biologist finds himself moving from Princeton to Harvard, where he is assuming the joint position of professor of mathematics and professor of biology. Epstein has pledged at least $25 million to Harvard to create the Epstein Program for Mathematical Biology and Evolutionary Dynamics, and Epstein will have an office at the university. The program will be dedicated to searching for nature’s algorithms, a pursuit that is a specialty of Nowak’s. For Epstein this must be the summit of everything he has worked toward: he has been seen proudly displaying Harvard president Larry Summers’s letter of commitment as if he can’t quite believe it is real. He says he was reluctant to have his name attached to the program, but Summers persuaded him. He rang his mentor Wexner about it, and Wexner told him it was all right.

An insatiable, restless soul, always on the move, Epstein builds a tremendous amount of downtime into his hectic work schedule. Yet there is something almost programmed about his relaxation: it’s as if even pleasure has to be measured in terms of self-improvement. Nowak says that, when he goes to stay with Epstein in the Caribbean, they’ll get up at six and, as the sun rises, have three-hour conversations about theoretical physics. “Then he’ll go off and do some work, re-appear, and we’ll talk some more.”

Another person who went to the island with Epstein, Maxwell, and several beautiful women remembers that the women “sat around one night teasing him about the kinds of grasping women who might want to date him. He was amused by the idea…. He’s like a king in his own world.”

Many people comment there is something innocent, almost childlike about Jeffrey Epstein. They see this as refreshing, given the sophistication of his surroundings. Alan Dershowitz says that, as he was getting to know Epstein, his wife asked him if he would still be close to him if Epstein suddenly filed for bankruptcy. Dershowitz says he replied, “Absolutely. I would be as interested in him as a friend if we had hamburgers on the boardwalk in Coney Island and talked about his ideas.”

* * *

"Springbok Goes All In for ABC Daytime", by Army Archerd, _Variety_ , May 17, 2003  
  
Springbok Productions has signaled they are more than willing to bury the hatchet with Disney after the Mickey Mouse fiasco by giving a generous support of cash infusion to the soaps lineup on ABC Daytime. Consisting of _One Life to Live_ , _All My Children_ , _General Hospital_ and its spinoff series _Port Charles_ , ABC and its daytime programming has long been beloved by soap opera fans nationwide, even if it has long had to fight against the massive ratings success that NBC and CBS have held to dominate the field.  
  
"ABC Daytime is an absolute staple in the world of television," Springbok co-founder and operating head Jennifer Todd states. "But when the ratings have a tendency to falter and it gets harder to attract sponsorship revenue, no matter how beloved, these shows could very well disintegrate. And when leadership in charge of the network programming tends to be more focused on the bottom line and chasing trends rather than taking care of the viewers, then the audience is basically screwed over. Thankfully, Michael Eisner's error in judgment and the way Bob Iger has moved to correct the course has also woken Disney up to the need to institute more sweeping change in their various divisions, especially regarding television."  
  
Up until last month, the so-called Disney-ABC Television Group was under the purview of Anne Sweeney, who also was in charge of The Disney Channel, a position she'd held since 1996, after Disney's purchase of Capital Cities/ABC took effect. And ABC Daytime was led by Brian Frons, who had also worked at NBC Daytime and CBS Daytime, and who had only held the position since last August, when Sweeney herself named him to head the division. However, Roy Edward Disney, nephew of Walt, had very harsh criticisms for both of them after the Eisner/Mickey controversy died down, referring to them as "corporate suits who couldn't find the magic and show it on the air even if it was right in front of them." Indeed, he had constantly talked with some of their subordinates and lobbied to undermine decisions they made which he felt would've hurt ABC in the long run. He was especially doing so with Disney's COO Bob Iger, who also was head of ABC itself, and Iger frequently was convinced.  
  
A prime example occurred in late 1996. During this point in time, _The City_ , a 30-minute spinoff of the long-running soap _Loving_ , was going head to head against _The Young & the Restless_ on CBS, airing at 12:30 PM, and constantly managing no better than a 2.9 rating, a situation partly driven by the fact that a considerable number of ABC's affiliates were choosing instead to use that slot for local news and move the show to later in the day, if they aired it at all. Very serious talks were held, with Sweeney planning to cancel the series and use the newly-announced _Port Charles_ , focusing on a group of interns working at the titular General Hospital, to take that slot instead, especially pointing out that by reusing the parent show's sets, it would also cut costs considerably. However, prodded by Mr. Disney, Iger overrode this decision, stating that if ABC simply bought the noon-1:00 PM time slot from all the affiliates and reshuffled their programming lineup, _The City_ could easily improve in status, and there would be room for _Port Charles_ as well when it premiered on June 1, 1997. As a result, _One Life to Live_ was moved to noon-1:00, _All My Children_ to 1:00-2:00, _The City_ remained at 2:00-2:30 until it concluded in 2001 (having garnered an average rating of no lower than 6.2 by then), _Port Charles_ at 2:30-3:00 (it was moved later to _The City's_ slot after that show concluded), and _General Hospital_ at 3:00-4:00 (now 2:30-3:30).  
  
Despite having a more conducive time slot thanks to Iger's intervention, _Port Charles_ still struggled to survive, with ratings constantly hovering at 5, and a seeming lack of interest in many _General Hospital_ fans to watch a series that was basically its half-sized kid sibling, as well as little interaction between the two shows. Moving to shake things up, the show, now under new head writers James Harmon Brown and Barbara Esenstein, decided to reinvent itself by abandoning the traditional open-ended method of storytelling, where plots often take years to resolve, to 13-week "books", where arcs were given a more definite beginning, middle and end, somewhat reminiscent of Latin _telenovelas_. The show also decided to delve into supernatural elements and themes of gothic intrigue, incorporating vampires, angels, time travel, love after death, and so on, turning itself into a modern-day _Dark Shadows_. The method also allowed cast and crew, who tape two episodes a day, to work only six months out of the year, which also helped save money.  
  
As a result of these changes, the critics universally praised the new storytelling method, and the show's ratings began to grow, though not as much as ABC had hoped. Esenstein confirms that Frons and Sweeney were going to axe the show fairly soon. "Brian and Anne just kept saying that 'a half-hour show simply isn't financially viable, there's no reason to keep this around, especially if it's not getting double digit ratings.' Of course, we're all in the middle of hiatus right now, and if the show was cancelled before July, that would mean that the last arc that we finished taping would end on a cliffhanger, and we couldn't return to tape resolutions to it all. I speak for all of us when I say that we are grateful that Springbok is funneling money to keep us, and our three compatriot shows, alive. _Port Charles_ is an essential show in the lineup, especially to all the young viewers who have been following us since at least the _Tainted Love_ book. And mark my words, it wouldn't have stopped at us. Sooner or later down the line, they would have cut _One Life to Live_ and _All My Children_ , simply because their ratings have never been as good as _General Hospital_. That would have been a massive blow to soaps fans everywhere."  
  
With a steady stream of working capital at the shows' disposal, the remaining shows of ABC Daytime are likely secure for as long as they will continue running. By now, thanks to an Emmy nomination and Springbok's capitalization, _Port Charles_ may especially benefit from this and grow by as much as 30 percent in the ratings. The show's current book, _Desire_ , is scheduled to end on the Fourth of July, and the most recent arc that was taped, _The Gift_ , will start the following Monday. When asked about where the series will go afterwards, Esenstein plays coy. "All I can say is that it's time to go big or go home, and for the fans that we've gained, their loyalty will be rewarded."  
  
Springbok also announced that they will provide cash for one of the network's biggest primetime series, _The Practice_ , which has been hailed as a refreshingly un-glamorized legal procedural compared to its predecessors and peers, especially regarding ethical dilemmas. "We are content with keeping shows like this alive and not actually producing," Todd states. "Sometimes, the money and the credit doesn't matter." ****

* * *

“WorldCom Agrees to Pay $750 Million in SEC Suit,” by Barnaby J. Feder, _The New York Times_ , July 8, 2003 **  
  
**A federal judge approved an agreement yesterday for WorldCom to pay $750 million to settle an accounting fraud lawsuit by the Securities and Exchange Commission.  
  
The ruling by Judge Jed S. Rakoff in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York ended the monetary phase of the complex suit, which is unfolding in tandem with WorldCom's bankruptcy proceedings in another federal court in New York.  
  
The deal reflects WorldCom's agreement to a $2.25 billion penalty, but the settlement assumes that the actual payment will be reduced as part of WorldCom's proposed reorganization in bankruptcy.  
  
The company, which inflated reported earnings by $11 billion or more and cost investors as much as $200 billion, has also produced criminal cases against various former WorldCom executives as well as numerous private lawsuits.  
  
WorldCom, based in Ashburn, Virginia, had agreed to several nonmonetary demands by the SEC, including the appointment by Judge Rakoff of Richard C. Breeden, a former SEC chairman, as a monitor of WorldCom's efforts to overhaul its management and business practices.  
  
The financial settlement, Judge Rakoff said, was ''not only fair and reasonable but as good an outcome as anyone could reasonably expect in these difficult circumstances.''  
  
He said that no large company had so thoroughly divorced itself from past misdeeds and that WorldCom had taken ''extraordinary steps to prevent such misdeeds in the future.''  
  
Michael D. Capellas, the company's chairman and chief executive, said in a statement that the ruling reflected the work of 55,000 employees and support from creditors.  
  
The two federal courts and the major parties to the lawsuits have been involved in a tricky legal minuet trying to square the workings of bankruptcy law, which puts shareholders last, with the interests of the SEC in protecting investors.  
  
In effect, the ruling yesterday, which was approved by a committee representing creditors, gives a small piece of the pie to shareholders in the hope of keeping WorldCom's rebirth moving forward.  
  
Although the ruling did not mention it, the settlement splits the payment between shareholders and bondholders according to a complicated formula.  
  
The payment will include $500 million in cash and $250 million in stock in MCI, as WorldCom will be officially renamed once its bankruptcy plan is approved and new stock can be issued.  
  
If, contrary to expectations, WorldCom ends up being liquidated rather than reborn, it will be liable for only the $500 million cash payment. The stock payment was a sweetener added last week to the original penalty proposal presented in May. That proposal was criticized for not giving investors any benefit for the added value WorldCom would have after reorganizing.  
  
The penalty would be 75 times larger than any previous payment to the SEC in a fraud case, according to the court order. Even so, it was still criticized by some as too lenient.  
  
''I believe they could have gotten much more without forcing WorldCom to liquidate,'' said Mitch Marcus, a former WorldCom account manager who has organized a campaign to boycott MCI. Many critics, including competitors like Verizon and AT&T have argued that the best course would be to force WorldCom to liquidate and use all of its resources toward paying back creditors and shareholders.  
  
Some legal experts said, however, that the main problem with the financial penalty was that it would be unlikely to deter fraud because it was being paid by a bankrupt company - essentially moving money from creditors to investors - rather than the individuals who carried out the fraud.  
  
''I don't know that there is any social purpose served here in punishing the creditors,'' said John C. Coffee Jr., a professor at Columbia University.  
  
Judge Rakoff said the best penalty would be criminal charges against the individuals involved but that such an action was beyond the reach of the SEC or his court.  
  
The SEC has filed civil lawsuits against four former WorldCom executives who have agreed to injunctions barring certain activities, but financial penalties against them have not been settled, according to Peter Bresnan, a spokesman for the agency. The executives are: David F. Myers, the former controller; Buford Yates, Jr., the former accounting director; Betty L. Vinson and Troy M. Normand, former accountants.  
  
Two more executives, Scott D. Sullivan, WorldCom's former chief financial officer, and Bernard J. Ebbers, WorldCom’s former CEO, face criminal charges but have not been sued by the SEC.

* * *

"MDP, MGM Bail on _Sea_ ," by Dana Harris and Cathy Dunkley, _Variety_ , August 11, 2003  
  
Kevin Spacey’s Bobby Darin biopic _Beyond the Sea_ is facing problems before the first scene is even shot. Pic’s original backers — Mark Damon’s MDP Worldwide and MGM — have dropped out, with distribution now likely to be handled by Lionsgate Films, at least in the U.S. Jim Reeve and Steve Robbins’ UK-based tax financier, Visionview, appears poised to act as Lionsgate’s equity partner.  
  
Pic is skedded to begin production Oct. 6. Spacey will direct and star as Darin, with Kate Bosworth portraying Sandra Dee. Spacey, Andy Patterson and Arthur Friedman produce. Phil Ramone will serve as music producer. MDP’s Mark Damon and Joanne Horowitz still plan to serve as exec producers, along with Spacey's Trigger Street Productions partner Dana Brunetti.  
  
According to a statement released by MDP Monday, “The withdrawal is due to Spacey’s need to complete the film with the availability of the cast and production personnel by the end of 2003, which conflicted with MDP’s current production schedule.”  
  
Spacey said: “I am enormously grateful to MDP’s faith in getting the film this far. I am very pleased that the film is going forward on schedule and will continue to be thankful to MDP for making a decision that is clearly in the best interest of the film.”  
  
MDP has of late been concentrating on more obviously commercial fare, and Damon is among the producers on the upcoming Springbok Productions project _Monster_ , in which Charlize Theron stars as convicted serial killer Aileen Wuornos.  
  
Visionview, which backed Stephen Fry’s upcoming release _Bright Young Things_ , has a nonexclusive relationship with Jeanine Gold and Natalie Brenner’s sales company Element X. Latter could be in the running to handle some foreign sales on Spacey’s pic.

* * *

"Element X Sets Sail with Spacey's _Sea_ ," by Adam Dawtrey, _Variety_ , September 10, 2003 **  
  
**Kevin Spacey’s _Beyond the Sea_ heads the debut slate of Element X, a new London-based film sales company headed by former FilmFour execs Janine Gold and Natalie Brenner. Element X also is handling _In My Father’s Den_ , a UK-New Zealand co-production; _Man About Dog_ from Irish helmer Paddy Breathnach; and the latest untitled pic from Brit auteur Shane Meadows. All except the Meadows pic have come to Element X through a nonexclusive partnership with U.K. tax financier Visionview.  
  
 _Beyond the Sea_ , a biopic of singer Bobby Darin, is directed by Spacey, who will star alongside Kate Bosworth, Cathy Moriarty, John Goodman and Bob Hoskins. _In My Father’s Den_ , written and directed by Brad McGann, stars Matthew Macfadyen, Mirando Otto and Vicky Haughton in the story of a disillusioned war reporter implicated in the disappearance of a teenage girl. It started shooting Monday. _Man About Dog_ , shooting in Ireland, is a raucous comedy about dog racing.

* * *

"General Electric and Vivendi Universal Sign Agreement To Merge NBC and Vivendi Universal Entertainment," BusinessWire, October 8, 2003

NEW YORK and PARIS-General Electric (NYSE: GE) and Vivendi Universal (Paris Bourse: EX, NYSE: V) announced today that they have signed a definitive agreement for the merger of NBC and Vivendi Universal Entertainment (VUE). The new company, to be called NBCUniversal, will be 80%-owned by GE, with 20% held by the shareholders of Vivendi Universal Entertainment.  
The merger will create one of the world's most profitable and fastest-growing media companies, with an estimated value of $43 billion. NBCUniversal will be led by Bob Wright, vice chairman of GE and chairman and CEO of NBC, and will offer consumers and advertisers broad reach, compelling brands, and superior operational expertise. The new company's assets will include:  
  
\- The No. 1-ranked NBC Television Network, with success in all dayparts and the franchise assets of NBC News and NBC Sports.

\- Universal Pictures, a world leader in the production and distribution of motion pictures, with a library of more than 5,000 films, including _To Kill a Mockingbird, E.T., Jaws_ , and _Jurassic Park_.

\- Television production studios NBC Studios and Universal Television, two well-known producers and distributors of television programming worldwide. Their combined libraries comprise more than 32,000 TV episodes covering the entire span of network television, from classic Westerns like _The Virginian_ to dramas such as _The Rockford Files_ and _Law & Order_ to situation comedies like _Leave It to Beaver_ and _Just Shoot Me!_.

\- A portfolio of successful cable networks including USA Network, Sci-Fi Channel, CNBC, MSNBC (jointly owned with Microsoft), Bravo, and Trio.

\- The NBC TV stations group, with 10 of its 14 owned-and-operated stations No. 1 or No. 2 in their markets.

\- Spanish-language TV broadcaster Telemundo and its 15 Telemundo stations, which reach 91% of Hispanic TV households in the United States.

\- Interests in five theme parks.

Jeff Immelt, Chairman and CEO of GE, said: "With this merger, NBC will stay in the forefront of the fundamental changes taking place in television and other media. The new NBCUniversal will have the assets, the management team and the operating focus to prosper in a digital world and enhance value for GE and Vivendi Universal shareowners. This deal demonstrates GE's commitment to be a global leader in technology and customer focus."

Bob Wright said: "This agreement is a significant milestone in the history of both NBC and General Electric. The combination of GE's and Vivendi Universal's respective media assets into a dynamic new company considerably strengthens our capabilities as a content provider and packager and sets the stage for long-term growth."

Jean-Rene Fourtou, Chairman and CEO of Vivendi Universal, said: "This is a very good agreement for Vivendi Universal's shareholders, both in terms of value creation and the reduction of our debt. This transaction will significantly lower Vivendi Universal's debt, which by the end of 2004, should be below EUR5 billion. The creation of NBC Universal will strengthen and safeguard our U.S. assets and the alliance will greatly benefit Vivendi Universal. The agreement has been built as part of a lasting partnership, and our shared willingness to cooperate will lead to innovative commercial agreements in the media sector. This agreement will consolidate our media and telecommunications company. By the end of next year, Vivendi Universal will be a profitable company with a low level of debt, and our teams will be motivated by the new prospects for growth."

On a pro forma basis, the new company is projected to have 2003 revenues of more than $13 billion from a diverse group of complementary assets, annual EBITDA of nearly $3 billion, and the highest operating margins of any major television media company in the United States.

As part of the transaction, the shareholders of Vivendi Universal Entertainment are expected to receive at closing their allocable share of $3.8 billion of cash consideration, of which Vivendi Universal, as 86% owner of VUE, is expected to receive approximately $3.3 billion. GE intends to issue GE common stock at or prior to closing to fund the cash portion of the transaction. In addition, NBC Universal will assume approximately $1.7 billion of debt. Beginning in 2006, Vivendi Universal will have the option to begin monetizing its ownership interest at fair market value. The companies have identified $400 million to $500 million in potential synergies, including both cost savings and revenue growth. Vivendi Universal will hold three out of 15 seats on the board of directors of NBCUniversal.

The merger is subject to customary approvals from various regulatory agencies. The companies anticipate completing the transaction in the first half of 2004.

Citigroup and Goldman, Sachs & Co. are serving as financial advisors to Vivendi Universal. BNP-Paribas and SG Corporate & Investment Banking are also serving as financial advisors with the mandate to deliver a fairness opinion. Weil, Gotshal & Manges is serving as legal counsel to Vivendi Universal.

Credit Suisse First Boston and AGM Partners are serving as financial advisors to General Electric and NBC. Debevoise & Plimpton is serving as legal counsel to General Electric and NBC.

* * *

"Elton John and Bernie Taupin's _Vampire Lestat_ Tests Its Wings in Private NYC Reading," by Kenneth Jones and Ernio Hernandez, _Playbill_ , November 3, 2003 **  
  
**_The Vampire Lestat_ , the new musical by songwriters Elton John and Bernie Taupin, based on the bloodthirsty and love-hungry characters of Anne Rice, gets a private reading for the producers and creative team beginning on November 4, _Playbill On-Line_ has learned.  
  
The cast for the 29-hour, Equity-approved reading of the early draft of the show includes James Barbour ( _Jane Eyre_ ) as Lestat, Jack Noseworthy ( _Sweet Smell of Success_ ), Steve Blanchard ( _Beauty and the Beast_ ), Max von Essen ( _Dance of the Vampires_ ) and other performers.  
  
The project, from new producer Warner Bros. Theatre Ventures — and with Manny Azenberg as a partner and Springbok Productions joining in — was announced in May 2003, aiming for a 2005 staging.  
  
John and Taupin are known for their internationally successful songs "Someone Saved My Life Tonight," "Daniel," "Rocket Man," "Candle In The Wind," "Don't Let The Sun Go Down On Me," "Bennie and the Jets" and more. The score of the dawning show is said to be more legit and traditional than pop and rock. The libretto is by Linda Woolverton ( _Beauty and the Beast, Aida_ and the film, _The Lion King_ ). Robert Jess Roth ( _Beauty and the Beast_ ) directs.  
  
When it was announced in spring 2003, the project's working title was _The Vampire Lestat_. " _Interview With the Vampire_ is one of my favorite books and Anne Rice is one of my favorite authors," John said in an earlier statement. "Although this project has taken a while to come together, I firmly believe we have the right team in place. _The Vampire Lestat_ is the first stage musical that I've written with Bernie which makes it even more special for me." Taupin added, "Anne had always loved the idea of seeing her _Vampire Chronicles_ set in some sort of serious and seductive musical setting and for all of the parties involved this is the opportunity of a lifetime. Our intention is to make a classically-based show that is stripped of gothic clichés and that shows the vampire dealing with his damnation on a more realistic and human level. Please let me make this clear this is NOT a rock opera. Our hope is that it will be stylish, sexy, intelligent, rich and hypnotically dark."  
  
The title character has been adapted for the screen in such films as _Interview With the Vampire_ and _Queen of the Damned_. Both movies drew on the original best-selling novels by Anne Rice.  
  
Recording artist Elton John, known internationally for his pop songwriting career of over 30 years, is currently represented on Broadway by the long-running Disney collaborations _The Lion King_ and _Aida._ Warner Bros. Theatre Ventures marks its debut with the project. The parent company is Warner Bros. Entertainment. The organization, which was founded more than 75 years ago started as a motion picture company, has become a multi-faceted entertainment company branching into television, home video, animation and international theatres.  
  
Springbok Productions, the production company of Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain and his wife, actress Charlize Theron, rocketed out of nowhere with the hit films _Ghost in the Shell_ , _Noble Rot_ and _Dragon's Lair_. Currently, their latest film, _Monster_ , in which Theron portrays convicted serial killer Aileen Wuornos, is prepping for its premiere at the AFI Film Fest on November 16.  
  
Vampires have inspired a number of musicals in the past year. Jim Steinman's _Dance of the Vampires_ — based on the Roman Polanski film _The Fearless Vampire Killers_ — saw the Broadway stage in October 2002, with help from Springbok as a producer, an original cast boasting the likes of Meat Loaf and Michael Crawford, and is currently running to packed houses a year later. Bram Stoker's classic vampire tale _Dracula_ was adapted into three separate incarnations that have been seen in regional theatres: _Dracula: A Chamber Musical_ (book and lyrics by Richard Ouzounian with music and orchestrations by Marek Norman); _Dracula — The Game of Love_ (book and lyrics by Michael Lazar with music by Richard Oberacker); and _Dracula, the Musical_ (book and lyrics by Christopher Hampton and Don Black with music by Frank Wildhorn). Posters for the Wildhorn version popped up around Manhattan in 2002, but no announcement has been made for the show's future following its La Jolla, California, premiere.

* * *

" _The Producers_ : The Case of the Shrinking Blockbuster", by Jesse McKinley, _The New York Times_ , November 3, 2003. **  
  
**On April 19, 2001, at the St. James Theatre, everybody who was anybody thought they were witnessing the birth of the next great long-running, crowd-pleasing, bona fide Broadway blockbuster. The occasion was the opening of _The Producers_ , Mel Brooks' comic musical based on his classic 1968 film. The critics loved the show, the producers loved the critics, the actors loved the producers and the investors loved just about everybody. The next day, ticket buyers started lining up before dawn.  
  
Starring Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick as Max Bialystock and Leo Bloom, two roguish Broadway producers who aim to open a ''sure-fire flop'' and cash in, The Producers had the stars, it had the title and it had the sales. Some $3.3 million in tickets were sold the day after the opening, far and away the highest daily take in Broadway history. Optimistic observers predicted the show could move into that rarefied pantheon of mega-musicals like _The Phantom of the Opera_ (15 years and counting) and _Cats_ (18 years, currently the longest run in Broadway history).  
  
Now, however, it would appear that those cats had nothing to fear. Less than three years after its incomparably auspicious opening, _The Producers_ , in the eyes of many on Broadway, has become an underachiever.  
  
Its box office grosses, which set record highs - more than $1.2 million per week - in its first year, have fallen about 20 percent in the last 12 months. It now ranks below newer shows in the light and frothy category like _Hairspray_ and _Mamma Mia!_ , but a new show in the category that it was supposedly going to kill off: _Dance of the Vampires_ , a massively bombastic “Wagnerian rock” musical by Jim Steinman and brought to life thanks to Springbok Productions, the company formed by Kurt Cobain and Charlize Theron, is every inch the incredibly serious, melodramatic “Euro-pop opera” in the _Phantom_ or _Les Miserables_ vein that New York critics were getting thoroughly sick of and lionized _The Producers_ as being its death knell. And yet, despite the critics not caring for it, _Vampires_ , thanks to a cast featuring Meat Loaf and Michael Crawford, is selling out every performance and pulling more money on a consistent weekly basis than _The Producers_.  
  
Thus, the show is now being walloped in regular ticket sales by not only these new shows that have opened in the last year, but also _The Lion King_ , the 1997 Disney phenomenon whose success some believed _The Producers_ might emulate. Worse, in a supremely status-conscious metropolis, the show is now an easy ticket. _The Producers_ has not regularly sold out since the beginning of the year, despite a bout of new television advertising.  
  
Just after Labor Day, the show reported it was playing to a mere 61 percent of capacity - a level associated with shows of either twice its age or half its charm. Tom Viertel, one of the musical's producers, offered a summary of the production's current status. ''The show floats with the tide with all the other shows that aren't pre-sold so far in advance,'' he said. ''It's still profitable, and with Nathan and Matthew we sell out. We could boost the capacity, but we don't want to send the show to the booth'' - TKTS, the discount seller. ''We still think of _The Producers_ as very much of an event.''  
  
Floating with the tide? This, from the same show that won an unprecedented 12 Tony Awards? From a show that once had a whopping $37.8 million advance? (That advance now stands at about $4 to $6 million, Mr. Viertel said.) From a show whose producers set up and still run a side venture - Broadway Inner Circle - for the sole purpose of hawking $480 seats (another Broadway record) to those desperate souls who couldn't wait, and would pay any price, for a ticket?  
  
The producers contend there is no problem: the show was one of the fastest in history to recoup its investment, returning $10.5 million in a little more than seven months, and to this day it still has never had an unprofitable week. ''We're talking about the difference between being a hit and being a super mega-hit,'' said Richard Frankel, another producer of the musical. ''I've done enough shows doing $400,000 a week that I'm thrilled to be grossing $900,000.'' The producers of _The Producers_ may also have an ace up their sleeve; they are hopeful that Mr. Lane and Mr. Broderick will return at the end of the year for a three-month engagement. (They have reportedly been offered $100,000 each, per week - another record.) The show may even get a boost by being prominently featured on the new season of _Curb Your Enthusiasm_ , which returns in January on HBO.  
  
But for now, you can get a seat pretty much any night of the week. So whodunit to _The Producers_? How could the most celebrated show in memory already have lost that magical glow of Broadway ''must-see''? Whether it's a case of first-degree hubris or third-degree greed, somebody - or something - has to take the rap.  
  
Was It the Material?  
  
One theory, especially prevalent among insiders, is that, with its low-brow Mel Brooks humor and winking high-brow references, _The Producers_ is designed to appeal to show-biz-savvy literates. And that demographic, the thinking goes, is growing smaller by the day.  
  
''I'm going to be blunt,'' said Rocco Landesman, the president of Jujamcyn Theaters, which owns the St. James. ''The show is good, the audiences are bad. It never occurred to me that this show was pitched too high for a Broadway audience.'' With today's Broadway audience largely made up of out-of-towners and tourists, he said, ''two-thirds of the show sails entirely over the heads of the audience.'' And the fewer people who get the jokes, the fewer people who tell their friends to go.  
  
Of course, one theatergoer's high-minded drama is another's slapstick reference, so keep in mind that we're talking about a show with recurring jokes about sex with old ladies. But the content of the jokes is irrelevant if no one speaks the language.  
  
As Jeffrey Seller, one of the producers of _Rent_ (seven years and counting) and, more recently, _Avenue Q_ (three months), points out, the most successful shows appeal even to non-English-speakers, who make up a significant portion of the Broadway audience. ''To compare it to _Cats_ or _The Lion King_ isn't fair because it's a funny but literate piece of theater that's language-dependent,'' Mr. Seller said. ''It's not pure visual or musical entertainment, and those are the types of shows that last 15 or 20 years.'' Bill Haber of USA Ostar Theatricals, one of the producers of _Vampires_ , elaborates on this. " _Vampires_ was already well known for its runs in Vienna and Stuttgart, so we've had a lot of German-speaking people come to our version to see how it compares. They're quite impressed, and feel that it's bound to crystallize into a classic, though we're definitely not aiming for _Phantom_ status, more like a four-year run."  
  
Was It the Casting?  
  
In order to make those Brooksian gags work, you need a mighty Max - an actor who can hold the audience's attention for the better part of three hours, land the show's one-liners and sell the grueling 11:00 production number (''Betrayed'').  
  
''Max Bialystock has to drive the show, just as in _Les Mis_ the music drives the show,'' said Susan Stroman, the director of _The Producers_. ''And that quality is rare.''  
  
Almost as soon as Mr. Lane and Mr. Broderick started their yearlong run, questions arose - both internally and in the industry - about who would eventually replace them. So it was with some fanfare that the producers announced, in February 2002, that the respected British actor Henry Goodman would take over the role from Mr. Lane. (Steven Weber, of the television sitcom _Wings_ , was cast as Leo.)  
  
There was reason to be hopeful. _Fiddler on the Roof_ continued to sell out after Zero Mostel left, as did _The Phantom of the Opera_ without Michael Crawford. _Dance of the Vampires_ also looks fit to keep on rolling with Mr. Loaf and Mr. Crawford being replaced by Drew Sarich and Rene Auberjonois, respectively.  
  
In this case, however, the recasting was a disaster. ''We felt the show was such a great piece of machinery that any good actor could step in and still sell at the same level,'' Mr. Landesman admitted. ''I think it surprised us to some degree that it didn't.'' Mr. Brooks (who declined to be interviewed for this article) was not present when Mr. Goodman auditioned. According to Ms. Stroman, who offered Mr. Goodman the role, despite a strong first impression he was soon struggling. ''It was not the right fit,'' she said. Less than a month into the run, Mr. Goodman was fired. Which led to something completely new for _The Producers_ : bad press. ''Things aren't so funny for _The Producers_ , '' read a story in _The_ _New York Post_.  
  
Mr. Goodman was replaced by Brad Oscar, a good actor - and uncanny Nathan Lane impersonator. But Mr. Lane's special assets - big name, big laughs, big body - were, and are still, almost impossible to replace. The best attempt thus far occurred in the show's Los Angeles production, planned for eight months, which opened in May with Jason Alexander as Max and Martin Short as Leo. Even so, while Mr. Short gets plenty of well-deserved plaudits, Mr. Alexander has received mixed reviews, partially due to constantly going on despite obvious sickness, and the production is not consistently selling out.  
  
Meanwhile, a suitable Max has still not been found for the London production, planned for next fall.  
  
Was It the Pricing?  
  
Some observers believe that the musical's producers set an unnecessarily cocky tone on opening night, when they announced that the production would hike its top ticket price to $100, a new high on Broadway. Six months later, the show would up the ante again, establishing the Inner Circle and introducing Broadway to the concept of ''premium seating'' - at $480 a head. Producers of the show said the price would thwart scalpers, who at that point were selling tickets for as much as $1000 on the Internet. Let those who created - and backed - _The Producers_ reap the rewards, the logic went. To others, however, $480 tickets were just price gouging. And for the larger audience, it meant that even if you forked over a previously unheard-of $100, you would not get eighth row center but 22nd row on the side.  
  
Mr. Frankel acknowledged that the new highest price might have had some adverse effects, but he rejected any suggestion that it made the show's producers look greedy. ''I think there is no doubt from focus groups we held that we did leave the impression that to get good seats you had to pay $480,'' he said. ''And that has harmed us.'' He added, however, that more $480 seats than ever will be available for Mr. Lane and Mr. Broderick's return engagement.  
  
Was It Chutzpah?  
  
The ticket price was just one of several early factors that struck other Broadway producers, many of whom were envious of the show's bottom line and high profile, as arrogant.  
  
Some say its advertising was heavy-handed. ''We didn't take out ads saying we're the greatest thing ever,'' said one executive of a rival production. Others said it was too light.  
  
''One of the things that Cameron Mackintosh taught us is that you advertise when you don't need to,'' said a competing producer, about the British impresario who produced blockbusters like _Cats_ , _Les Miserables_ and _The Phantom of the Opera_. ''That way it becomes a frenzy. Not being able to get tickets becomes a selling point.''  
  
Then there was the question of how the producers of the show presented their product. Early advertisements focused exclusively on photographs of Mr. Lane and Mr. Broderick stationed on either side of the door to the offices of ''Bialystock and Bloom,'' despite the fact that, as Mr. Landesman said, the show's producers felt it was ''an ensemble piece with two big roles and three or four major supporting parts.''  
  
The two actors, who both received Tony nominations (Mr. Lane won), were consistently presented as Broadway's inseparable dream team. They were the hosts of the Tony Awards show, they did joint interviews.  
  
The campaign worked too well. When the stars left, so did the production's identity. ''I don't think we were completely successful in shaking off the perception that Nathan and Matthew were intrinsic to what the show was,'' Mr. Viertel said.  
  
Was It Bad Luck?  
  
In the fall of 2001, the dream team was an increasingly rare sight. In November, Mr. Lane began to suffer from polyps on his left vocal cord, a condition that forced him to miss several dozen performances over the next five months. Mr. Broderick was also out for several weeks because of vacations and the flu. Still, as the men's contracts neared their end in March 2002, the show's producers made several lucrative offers to persuade their stars to remain. But Mr. Lane's health issues and Mr. Broderick's career commitments proved insurmountable.  
  
The curse of Max continues: a little more than a month ago, on September 24, Lewis J. Stadlen, the fourth actor to play Max, was forced to quit because of a hip injury. His replacement is Fred Applegate, who, with only one previous Broadway role, is unlikely to send ticket-buyers scrambling for their credit cards.  
  
Like every other show in New York, _The Producers_ also had to play to an audience traumatized by September 11, and perhaps not as willing to laugh at jokes about Hitler. ( _Vampires_ , for instance, had taken a moment to assess itself before starting its first performances in March 2002, even though it was bowing with an Atlanta tryout before heading to Broadway. “Good thing that was the case,” Mr. Steinman said in an interview when the show opened last year. “A melodramatic rock musical about the undead, where the bad guys win, no less, would’ve gotten us crucified if we’d gone straight to New York, no matter how funny it surprisingly is.”) The producers of _The Producers_ , however, note that sales didn't dip until the beginning of this year. Even now, they have rebounded from the Labor Day low and are holding at a respectable 80 percent.  
  
''I'm still envious,'' said Mr. Seller, the _Rent_ producer. ''I'd take that kind of box office any day.''  
  
Was It Inevitable?  
  
''I know people say this all the time, but there really was something magical about that opening night,'' Ms. Stroman, the director, said. ''I don't know if any show can maintain that level of hype.''  
  
Indeed, what happened to _The Producers_ on Broadway may just be a version of what almost always happen to producers on Broadway.  
  
''The expectation of a seven- or eight-year run is a delusion,'' said Emmanuel Azenberg, the veteran Broadway producer. He noted that before the 1970's, when _Oh! Calcutta!_ and _A Chorus Line_ each ran for more than 5,000 performances, a ''hit'' musical sometimes didn't run more than a year or two. ''This is behaving exactly like a hit behaved before the mega-musicals,'' Mr. Azenberg said.  
  
Mr. Mackintosh's big, broad spectacles made the show - not a given performer - the star, a goal that all producers say they share. Many are now curious to see how _Hairspray_ , another smart, winking musical with memorable leading performances, adapts as it ages. (Mr. Frankel and Mr. Viertel are, coincidentally, producers of _Hairspray_.) Unlike _The Producers_ , however, its male star, Harvey Fierstein (doing a memorable gender bending role with his inimitable husky voice), has signed on for the show's second year and has never missed a performance.  
  
''Personally, I don't like shows to depend on stars because stars leave,'' said Margo Lion, the lead producer of _Hairspray_. ''Of course, nothing sells like celebrity, but if you can avoid it, you avoid it.''  
  
Meanwhile, _The Producers_ continues to chug along. At a recent Saturday matinee, the St. James was almost sold out as Mr. Applegate vamped as Max, and Don Stephenson, another lesser-known, but good, actor, squeaked comically as the nebbish Leo. Audience members seemed to be enjoying themselves, though as Mr. Landesman had said, some of the more insidery jokes landed with a thud.  
  
''I'm not going into the toilet,'' says Leo, with a flourish, as he leaves his boring accounting job for the glamour of producing. ''I'm going into show business.''  
  
The house was nearly silent, so much so that Mr. Stephenson did a double take to the audience, as if to say, ''That's a funny line.'' No dice.  
  
It's a line that will land again when the original stars return, as they are expected to do, and the St. James is once more packed to capacity. But someday they will leave, as they did before, and the producers will be faced with the same problems as last time. (Though Mr. Short, it has been rumored, may come to New York as Leo, or even Max.)  
  
''We're not going to go out and just hire a name that can't quite pull this show off,'' Mr. Landesman said. ''We're going to get good actors, whether or not they're names, and we're going to live or die by that position.''  
  
Then, sensing that perhaps the phrase ''live or die'' was a little too extreme for a show that once seemed invincible, he added: ''But everybody should have these problems. I wish I had these problems with every show.''

* * *

"For _The Producers_ , Another Box Office Bonanza", by Jesse McKinley, _The New York Times_ , November 17, 2003  
  
Who says theater is dead?  
  
Thousands of musical lovers, theater fans and ticket scalpers descended on the St. James Theater yesterday to buy - or try to buy - tickets for the return engagement of Matthew Broderick and Nathan Lane in _The Producers,_ making for a crowd that snarled pedestrian traffic throughout Times Square and last night toppled Broadway's single-day record for ticket sales.  
  
The show sold some 6,000 tickets in less than 90 minutes, both in person and through Telecharge, after the box office opened at noon. By 10 PM, when the St. James's box office closed, more than 39,000 tickets had been sold, the producers said, and the day's take stood at nearly $3.5 million. Orders were still being taken through Telecharge.  
  
The previous record for one-day sales was also held by _The Producers_ , which sold $3.3 million in tickets on the day after the show's opening in April 2001.  
  
The return of the show's two original stars - who left the production last year after completing their contracts - for a 14-week run beginning on December 30, was officially announced last week, and ticket buyers started lining up as early as 5 a.m. on Friday, only to be dispersed by the police.  
  
Officers finally allowed crowds to start lining up in front of the theater at 12:01 AM yesterday, and the resulting crowd snaked around the block most of yesterday afternoon. Officials of the Jujamcyn, which owns the St. James, estimated the line had thousands of people at its peak.  
  
Those crowds continued to wait well into the evening; the box office, which was to have closed at 6 PM, was asked by the show's producers to extend its hours, even as hopeful ticket buyers remained standing patiently -- or not so patiently -- along West 44th Street from Seventh to Eighth Avenues.  
  
''It's been very, very frustrating,'' said Brandon Nazario, 28, who drove in from Bethpage, New York, ''The shame of it was that the people before us were not exactly the greatest theater enthusiasts.''  
  
In addition to die-hard theatergoers, the producers of _The Producers_ said they were also confronting another, less seemly, crowd: dozens of ''line-sitters,'' equipped with fistfuls of cash, who are paid by scalpers to buy chunks of tickets that are then resold at significant markups.  
  
A producer of the show, Richard Frankel, said that scalpers began depositing line-sitters by the vanful very early yesterday, and that by sunset many people who had joined that line as early 6 AM were still waiting behind scalpers to get tickets.  
  
Similarly, Mr. Frankel said that scalpers were using computer programs to buy blocks of tickets online, causing electronic traffic jams.  
  
''The good stuff is that there is a tremendous demand, affection, and regard for these performers and this play,'' Mr. Frankel said. ''But it is heartbreaking to see real theater lovers line up behind 250 yards of scalpers.''  
  
Indeed, while seats run from $30 (in the upper reaches of the balcony) to $1500 for an orchestra seat for a special New Year's Eve ticket package, including dinner and champagne, online scalpers were already advertising tickets for several times their face value late yesterday. One pair of the New Year's Eve tickets, for example, was advertised on eBay for $4999.  
  
Mr. Frankel said that the police had asked the show's producers, for safety reasons, to limit sales to two tickets per person - rather than the standard eight - in an effort to speed up sales and thin the crowd along West 44th Street, which was mingling with large Sunday matinee audiences coming and going at other theaters.  
  
That reduction was forcing some tough decisions. ''I was going to bring my mother and my fiancé,'' said Tara Tisdale, 30, of Harlem, who had been in line since dawn. ''But I think it's going to be a girls' night out.''  
  
The sudden demand was a sharp reversal of fortune for a show that was once Broadway's hottest ticket but that had seen its sales fall off since Mr. Lane and Mr. Broderick, the original stars, left in March 2002. With lesser stars in the roles, _The Producers_ has averaged only about 75 percent of capacity at the 1706-seat St. James in recent months.  
  
The production, based on Mel Brooks' 1968 movie about a pair of scheming money men who aim to open a ''sure-fire flop'' and steal their investors' money, won a record 12 Tony Awards, including best musical. It was also one of the shows to recoup its investment most quickly in Broadway history, making back some $10.5 million in a little more than seven months.  
  
That is not to say that its producers, being producers, were not already wondering what could keep things rolling after its two prodigal stars leave again. Mr. Lane and Mr. Broderick's encore is scheduled to end on April 4.  
  
''It's going to be a hell of a party,'' said Rocco Landesman, another of the musical's producers. ''But it might also be a hell of a hangover.''  
  
Such worries, however, were far from the minds of those like Larry Landesman, 46, who had driven into the city from New Jersey at 6 AM to get tickets.  
  
Mr. Landesman - who is no relation to the producer (he wouldn't be in line if he were) - said he and his family had seen _The Producers_ once before, but not with the original stars.  
  
''My family was so disappointed the first time we missed seeing Broderick and Lane, we decided we'd do anything to get tickets the next time around,'' Mr. Landesman said, still waiting in line at 7 PM. ''The parking fee will be outrageous, but it will be worth it.''

* * *

"Springbok's Saudi Surprise," Reuters, November 25, 2003

Springbok Productions received a surprise investment of an additional $2.5 billion today. $500 million of that money came from businessman Ronald Burkle, founder of Yucaipa Companies, the private equity firm, as well as for his fundraising and acquaintance with Democratic politicians. However, the rest of the money comes from a very powerful face, Saudi Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal. Known as the "Arabian Warren Buffett", Al-Waleed is known for being founder and CEO of Kingdom Holding Company, which has investments and/or minority stakes in Four Seasons, Hotel George V, Ford Motor Company, Hewlett-Packard, Motorola, News Corporation, PepsiCo, McDonald's, Saks Incorporated, eBay, Apple, Citigroup, AOL Time Warner, Amazon, Coca-Cola, Marvel and Disney.

Besides being involved in these companies and the Saudi royal family, he owns a great deal of his wealth to his family's involvement in the Saudi Arabian Oil Company, or Saudi Aramco, which holds the world's second-largest proven crude oil reserves, which clearly means massive revenues.

It has come out through a transcript of the minutes of the meeting and an investors' call that co-founders Kurt Cobain and Charlize Theron were not supportive of having Al-Waleed invest in the company, because of his oil company ties and and wanting to stay out of Middle Eastern politics. However, Springbok's board of directors, especially CFO James W. Keyes and the accountants, overrode the founders, stating that the prince would crowbar his way into the company some way or another, and it would be best to accommodate him. They also stressed, through the wording of the term sheet, that it would be one-time only investment, with no further involvement or contact with Al-Waleed, the rest of the Saudi royal family, or Saudi Aramco. It also included a planned "ejection" clause with which to kick Al-Waleed out should "the situation materially change." A press release, with appropriate disclaimers and clarification, including an implicit distancing from Al-Waleed, would be included.

For now, at least, Springbok's capitalization is further shored up by Al-Waleed's infusion of capital, as well as gaining a powerful figure regarding the company's potential expansion and release of its projects in the Middle East. Springbok has come off a record year of success with films like _Kill Bill, The School of Rock_ and _Monster_.


	3. 2004-2009

"Lane and Broderick to Star in _Producers_ Film", by Andrew Gans, _Playbill_ , January 6, 2004 **  
  
**They may be back on Broadway, but Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick are Hollywood-bound. _Variety_ reports that the two original stars of Broadway's _The Producers_ have signed deals to star in the upcoming film of the Mel Brooks musical, which began life as a non-musical film starring Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder.  
  
The industry paper reports that Broderick and Lane have signed "mid-seven-figure deals" to star in the Universal Pictures film. In addition, Springbok Productions, the production company founded by Kurt Cobain and Charlize Theron, and which also emerged as a serious contender to _The Producers_ with Jim Steinman’s _Dance of the Vampires_ , will help finance the film, in exchange for receiving the rights to North American regional productions after the movie opens, and helping Brooks produce his second planned stage musical, _Young Frankenstein_.  
  
Filming will begin in early 2005, and the movie — based on the Broadway musical — is due in cinemas in late 2005. Brooks, co-writer Thomas Meehan and choreographer/director Susan Stroman are also on board; the latter will stage the piece like she did on Broadway, however Universal insisted on having her give up the director’s reins for the film. No firm announcements for the slot, or Lane and Broderick’s costars, have been made, but rumors emerged that Brooks may share the directing duties between himself and someone else acquainted with film musicals.  
  
The original 1968 movie about a conniving producer starred Zero Mostel as producer Max Bialystock and Gene Wilder as Leo Bloom. Others in the cast included Kenneth Mars as Franz Liebkind, Renée Taylor as Eva Braun, Christopher Hewett as Roger DeBris, Lee Meredith as Ulla and Andréas Voutsinas as Carmen Ghia. Mel Brooks won an Academy Award Awards for Best Screenplay for _The Producers_ , and Gene Wilder was nominated for Best Actor in a Supporting Role.  
  
In addition to his Tony-winning roles in _The Producers_ and _A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum_ , Nathan Lane has starred on The Great White Way in _Present Laughter_ , _Merlin_ , _The Wind in the Willows_ , _Some Americans Abroad_ , _On Borrowed Time_ , _Guys and Dolls_ , _Laughter on the 23rd Floor_ , _Love! Valour! Compassion!_ and _The Man Who Came to Dinner_. The actor has also been featured in such films as _Addams Family Values_ , _Mousehunt_ , _Love's Labour's Lost_ and _The Birdcage_ , scoring a Golden Globe nomination for his work in the latter. He was recently seen in the film adaptation of _Nicholas Nickleby_ , and is also best known as the voice of Timon in Disney’s _The Lion King_.  
  
Matthew Broderick received Tony Awards for his performances in _Brighton Beach Memoirs_ and the revival of _How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying_. He was also Tony-nominated for his work in _The Producers_ , and his other theatre credits include _Biloxi Blues_ , _Night Must Fall_ , _Taller Than a Dwarf_ , _On Valentine's Day_ , _Torch Song Trilogy_ and _The Widow Claire_. His many film credits include _Max Dugan Returns_ , _War Games_ , _1918_ , _On Valentine's Day_ , _Ferris Bueller's Day Off_ , _Project X_ , _Ladyhawke_ , _Biloxi Blues_ , _Glory_ , _Family Business_ , _The Freshman_ , _The Night We Never Met_ , _The Cable Guy_ , _Addicted to Love_ , _Godzilla_ , _Inspector Gadget_ , _Election_ and _You Can Count On M_ e. Broderick also has bona fides with Disney, having been the voice of Simba in _The Lion King_ , did _Inspector Gadget_ for them, and also a recent television remake of _The Music Man_ on The Wonderful World of Disney slot on ABC. Broderick is married to actress Sarah Jessica Parker. The current Broadway production of _The Producers_ — at the St. James Theatre — stars Lane and Broderick, who are scheduled to be with the show through April 4. Lane is also the alternate Max for the upcoming West End production, should the currently slated Max, Richard Dreyfuss, bow out.

* * *

"Spacey's Darin Biopic Nears Completion," by Army Archerd, _Variety_ , January 21, 2004 **  
  
**The dream is a week away from fruition. I spoke with Kevin Spacey last night from the Babelsberg Studios in Berlin, where he had completed directing-starring in the day’s filming on _Beyond the Sea,_ the Bobby Darin story, as well as looking at the previous day’s dailies and doing dance rehearsals for the final scenes upcoming. “I am having the time of my life,” he said. “I’ve been dreaming of doing this for 10 years.” And as he said in my June 26, 2003, column, “If I waited any more I might be too old.” He admitted the start of the film went through “rocky periods of financing — by no fault of its own. My attitude was that every obstacle was an opportunity. And everyone in the film has turned my dream into their dream.” The British-German production, with a Lionsgate (“They turned out to be a joy”) release, will bow in November.  
  
As for the content of the film, Spacey says, “I’m not making a typical plodding biopic. It’s the story of a man who overcame several things. The current generation — and others — who know his music don’t know what he overcame as a child with rheumatic fever. I try to illustrate what his childhood illness was like, and how music and literature gave him hope. But I’m not telling a linear story. And as a performer, as sick as he was, you couldn’t have a clue he had as much as a hangnail — but he’d come offstage and collapse. His drive was constant to reinvent himself — like from rock ‘n’ roll to pop, into social values, politics. This is a story of someone trying to find out who he isn’t.” Spacey says he was supported in the project by Darin’s son Dodd, ex-wife Sandra Dee and longtime manager Steve Blauner, plus Roger Kellaway and Phil Ramone. He put down 33 tracks at the Abbey Road recording studio in London, with John Wilson and 48 musicians. He doesn’t sing all of the Darin hits completely, but some are background. Of course, there will be a soundtrack album. The _Lord of the Rings_ makeup and hair team have created Spacey’s “look” as Darin. But he says he’s not doing a singing imitation of him. And yes, he also plays drums and guitar a la Darin — and dances. He says he’s “fortunate” to have William Ulrich play Darin as a boy, Kate Bosworth as Sandra Dee, John Goodman as Blauner, plus Bob Hoskins, Vanessa Redgrave, Peter Cincotti, and a production design team that helps make the $40 million production look like much more. He was concerned about shooting in Berlin — but says they found locations to duplicate Beverly Hills, Las Vegas, the Bronx and Italy. Of course, Spacey takes no money at all … When the film goes into the editing room, Spacey heads to Vancouver for an acting stint in _Edison_ with Morgan Freeman, with whom he had “a great experience” on _Seven_. And then into his job as artistic director of the Old Vic, in which he will be in two shows a year with David Liddiment producing. This weekend his Trigger Street banner will be at Sundance with his Web site’s short-subject finalists. It’s also teamed with MGM on _Bringing Down the House_. And he’s partnered with Ross Martin at Fox with a series about a 14-year-old Wall Street whiz kid. Kevin Spacey’s a happy man.

* * *

"Cingular To Acquire AT&T Wireless, Create Nation's Premier Carrier", BusinessWire, February 17, 2004  
  
 _$41 billion deal to create number one wireless carrier, bring greater network coverage, improved service quality, new advanced data services to customers_  
  
ATLANTA – Cingular Wireless LLC, a joint venture between SBC Communications Inc. (NYSE: SBC) and BellSouth Corp. (NYSE: BLS), announced today an agreement to acquire AT&T Wireless (NYSE: AWE), creating the premier wireless carrier in the United States. Today, the combined company would have 46 million customers and one of the most advanced digital networks in the U.S., with spectrum in 49 states and coverage in 97 of the top 100 markets. The combined 2003 annual revenues of the two companies would have exceeded $32 billion.  
  
Under the terms of the agreement approved by the boards of directors of Cingular and AT&T Wireless, shareholders of AT&T Wireless will receive $15 cash per common share or approximately $41 billion. The acquisition, which is subject to the approvals of AT&T Wireless shareholders and federal regulatory authorities, and to other customary closing conditions, is expected to be completed as soon as late 2004.  
  
“This is great news for America’s wireless users,” said Stan Sigman, president and CEO of Cingular Wireless. “By combining the strengths of these two companies we expect to accelerate the availability of advanced wireless services for consumers. This combination is expected to create customer benefits and growth prospects neither company could have achieved on its own and will mean better coverage, improved reliability, enhanced call quality and a wide array of new and innovative services for consumers.”  
  
“Today’s announcement is a triple win for AT&T Wireless shareowners, customers and employees,” said John D. Zeglis, AT&T Wireless Chairman and CEO. “For shareholders, the transaction provides a handsome return on investment. For customers, this means all the advantages only the nation’s largest wireless company can provide. For employees who become part of the combined company, this means more opportunities than they otherwise would have had with AT&T Wireless as a standalone company.”  
  
Sigman continued: “Wireless communications is one of the most significant growth drivers in the telecommunications industry, and with the acquisition of AT&T Wireless, we believe no other company will be better positioned than Cingular to grow with the market’s continued expansion. The new company will have a strong foundation to begin rolling out exciting new services and data applications that enrich the end‐user experience.”  
  
Bigger Network, Better Coverage  
  
Customers of the new company will have access to the largest GSM network in the United States. GSM is the world’s most widely used wireless technology with nearly one billion customers in more than 200 nations. Because both companies use the same technology, the network integration will bring customers almost immediate improvement in coverage and call quality. Cingular customers also will have the widest choice of handsets and devices in the industry.  
  
Because of improved spectrum holdings, the new company should be able to accelerate its offering of advanced wireless data services and pave the way for high‐speed third generation services in the future. This is important because consumers and businesses are increasingly relying on wireless internet and e‐mail access. Cingular and AT&T Wireless have been leaders in rolling out high‐speed wireless data offerings, including GPRS (General Packet Radio Services), EDGE (Enhanced Data rates for GSM Evolution) and trialing next generation UMTS (Universal Mobile Telecommunications System).  
  
In addition, the new combined company will be well positioned to deliver unmatched services for business customers, including high‐speed wireless connectivity for PCs and wireless e‐mail devices – such as BlackBerry ‐‐ for mobile executives.  
  
Improved Operating Efficiencies  
  
Cingular expects to achieve significant operating synergies through this acquisition by consolidating networks, distribution, billing, procurement, marketing, advertising and other functions. The company expects to generate more than $1 billion in operating expense and capital expenditure savings in 2006, and in excess of $2 billion in annual savings beginning in 2007.  
  
Wireless Leadership  
  
“Cingular has a solid track record of successfully integrating companies,” said Sigman. “Three years ago, we created Cingular by combining two of the strongest regional wireless companies in the United States. We also created one of the best‐known and most recognizable brands in America. Now, we have the opportunity to use our combined resources to provide wireless users with services that are second‐to‐none.”  
  
The boards of Cingular and AT&T Wireless have approved the merger agreement. SBC Communications and BellSouth have committed funding to Cingular for the all cash deal. Funding requirements for SBC will be approximately $25 billion and for BellSouth, approximately $16 billion. Cingular expects the combined operations will generate positive free cash flow in 2005. Both SBC and BellSouth expect to have some dilution to GAAP and cash earnings per share in 2005 and 2006. Cash earnings per share for both SBC and BellSouth are expected to be accretive in 2007. GAAP earnings per share for BellSouth are expected to accretive in 2008 and accretive for SBC in 2007.  
  
SBC’s and BellSouth’s proportionate equity stake in Cingular will remain unchanged following the transaction, with SBC holding 60 percent and BellSouth 40 percent of the equity. Management control will remain 50‐50.  
  
ABOUT CINGULAR WIRELESS   
Cingular Wireless, a joint venture between SBC Communications (NYSE ‐ SBC) and BellSouth (NYSE ‐ BLS), serves more than 24 million voice and data customers across the United States. A leader in mobile voice and data communications, Cingular is the only U.S. wireless carrier to offer Rollover, the wireless plan that lets customers keep their unused monthly minutes. Cingular has launched the worldʹs first commercial deployment of wireless services using Enhanced Data rates for GSM Evolution (EDGE) technology. Cingular provides cellular/PCS service in 43 of the top 50 markets nationwide, and provides corporate e‐mail and other advanced data services through its GPRS, EDGE and Mobitex packet data networks.  
  
ABOUT AT&T WIRELESS   
AT&T Wireless (NYSE: AWE) is the second‐largest wireless carrier, based on revenues, in the United States. With 21.980 million subscribers as of December 31, 2003, and revenues of more than $16.6 billion over the past four quarters, AT&T Wireless delivers advanced high‐quality mobile wireless communications services, voice and data, to businesses and consumers, in the U.S. and internationally.

* * *

"Tower Records Sells All But Two Stores," _Billboard_ , April 2, 2004

Tower Records, one of the most iconic music retailers of all time, is officially pulling up stakes. With the exception of their flagship Tower Records and Tower Video stores on the Sunset Strip, which will be allowed to keep the name, and their website, all Tower assets will be sold. These stores are being divided between Virgin Megastore and Trans World Entertainment, which owns the FYE, Sam Goody, Musicland, Suncoast Motion Picture Company, Camelot Music, Wherehouse Entertainment and Media Play imprints. Tower will earn about $2.8 billion from the proceeds, which will keep the Sunset Strip stores and website alive for many years to come.

* * *

"WorldCom Changes Its Name And Emerges From Bankruptcy," by Kenneth N. Gilpin, _The New York Times_ , April 20, 2004  
  
WorldCom Inc. emerged from federal bankruptcy protection this morning with the new name of MCI, about 21 months after the scandal-tainted company sought protection from creditors in the wake of an $11 billion accounting fraud. "It really is a great day for the company," Michael D. Capellas, MCI's president and chief executive, said in a conference call with reporters. "We come out of bankruptcy with virtually all of our core assets intact. But it's been a marathon with hurdles."  
  
The bankruptcy process has allowed MCI to dramatically pare its debt from $41 billion to about $6 billion. And although that cutback will reduce debt service payments by a little more than $2 billion a year, the company still faces some hurdles in its comeback effort. In addition to changing its new name, the company added five people to its board. Richard Breeden, the former chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission who serves as MCI's court-appointed monitor, has imposed some restrictions on board members to make their actions more transparent. Those include a requirement that directors give two weeks' notice before selling MCI stock.  
  
Even though MCI has emerged from bankruptcy, Judge Jed S. Rakoff, the federal district judge who oversaw the SEC's civil lawsuit against the company, has asked Mr. Breeden to stay on for at least two years. For the time being, MCI shares will trade under the symbol MCIAV, which has been the symbol since the company went into bankruptcy. Peter Lucht, an MCI spokesman, said it will be "several weeks, not months" before MCI lists its shares on the NASDAQ market. In early morning trading, MCIAV was quoted at $18, down $1.75 a share.  
  
It was just about a year ago that WorldCom unveiled its reorganization plan, which included moving its headquarters from Clinton, Mississippi, to Ashburn, Virginia, and renaming the company after its long-distance unit, MCI. WorldCom had merged with MCI in a transaction that was announced in 1997. Although its outstanding debt has been dramatically reduced, MCI faces daunting challenges, not the least of which are pricing pressures in what remains a brutally competitive telecommunications industry. MCI has already warned it expects revenues to drop 10 percent to 12 percent this year.  
  
To offset the revenue decline, the company has taken steps to cut costs. Last month, MCI announced plans to lay off 4000 employees, reducing its work force to about 50,000. "It's going to be a tough year," Mr. Capellas said. "But the good news about our industry is that people do communicate, and they communicate in more ways."  
  
Mr. Capellas cited four areas where he saw growth potential for MCI: increased business from the company's current customers; global expansion; additions to MCI's array of products; and expansion of the company's security business. "Even though there are certain areas in the industry that are compressing, we think there is some space to grow," he said.  
  
In the course of the bankruptcy, MCI said it lost none of its top 100 customers. And in January the federal government, which collectively is MCI's biggest customer, lifted a six-month ban that had prohibited the company from bidding for new government contracts. To a certain extent, MCI's growth prospects will be hampered by its bondholders, whose primary interest is to ensure they are repaid for their investment as soon as possible. Even though many who contributed to the WorldCom scandal are gone, it will probably be some time before memories of what happened fade.  
  
All of the senior executives and board members from the time when Bernard Ebbers was chief executive are no longer with the company. Five executives, including Scott Sullivan, WorldCom's former chief financial officer, have pleaded guilty to federal charges for their roles in the scandal and are cooperating with the government in its investigation. Mr. Ebbers has pleaded not guilty to charges including conspiracy and securities fraud.

* * *

"Disney Names New Studio Head, Eisner Defines Succession," by James Bates and Richard Verrier, _Los Angeles Times_ , July 11, 2004

Disney CEO Michael Eisner announced today that he has named former Miramax development head Meryl Poster to the position of chair of The Walt Disney Studios. Currently operating studio head Richard W. Cook, who has had the chairman position since 2002, will continue to remain in place and be Poster's equal and co-chair, where they both are the superiors of the heads of the various studio divisions of Walt Disney Pictures, Walt Disney Animation Studios, Pixar Animation Studios, Touchstone Pictures, Hollywood Pictures and Lucasfilm Ltd.

"Meryl has proven herself quite formidable and talented in her own regard, and she was the only person who could buck trends at Miramax and not suffer for it. Her instincts are very much welcomed, and we expect her to lead the studio for many, many years to come," Eisner said in the statement to the press. Indeed, as the statement says, she became known as the only woman able to say no to Harvey Weinstein, who in turn was able to go along with suggestions that she made regarding projects in development.

"I am really quite excited to be joining the talented heads and people at Disney," Poster said. "For nearly 20 years, Michael Eisner has helped redefine The Walt Disney Company as an impressive force in family-friendly entertainment, and also encouraged its organic evolution into more mature territory and brave new creative endeavors. And Dick Cook is an absolute wonderful figure to be co-chair with, I am honored to be working with him."

"I welcome Meryl to the chair, and to Disney as a whole," Cook replied. "Together we will help blaze new trails for Disney, and make amazing projects that will be enjoyed for generations to come."

In addition to this, Eisner announced that rumors of his contemplating retirement in the future are true, and that he has announced that he will leave Disney in 2008, and selected Disney COO Robert A. Iger as his successor. Iger has been head of ABC Entertainment since just before Disney's purchase of the network, and COO of Disney since 1996. Iger also has experience helping fill in for Eisner, as after an ill-advised attempt to prevent Mickey Mouse from entering the public domain in early 2003, the results of which caused massive negative press for the company, Eisner went on a months-long sabbatical and Iger held down the fort, completely turning the PR battle around with the amazing "Swashbuckling Summer of Pirates" marketing blitz to promote _Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl_ and _Treasure Planet_ simultaneously that year, helping lead to massive box office success and critical raves for both films. Indeed, since Eisner has been back, Iger has been taking on more and more duties that used to be the CEO's domain, helping the company continue its amazing run of success that it has had for the last 15 years, even after John Lee Hancock's dry, ponderous drama _The Alamo_ became the largest box office flop in Disney's history after it was released back in April.

"Bob has shown that he has what it takes to get the job done, and he's definitely been proven to be effective in a crisis situation. In my remaining years here at Disney, I will naturally be giving Bob more and more power, little by little, while working to get my creativity on overdrive. I know that the next few years will be important for The Walt Disney Company, and I'm going to ensure it's done right," Eisner explained in his statement. Shares of Disney stock rose $15.27 in response to the news.

* * *

"DreamWorks Redraws Its Future," by James Bates and Richard Verrier, _Los Angeles Times_ , July 22, 2004 **  
  
**DreamWorks Studios, created by moguls Steven Spielberg, David Geffen and Jeffrey Katzenberg, revealed plans Wednesday to spin off its computer animation factory to the public, highlighting the shift by its founders away from the Hollywood powerhouse they envisioned a decade ago.  
  
The move by the entertainment company behind the lucrative _Shrek_ franchise would provide a way to reap much-needed cash through the sale of as much as $650 million in common stock. It also would financially fortify the company to compete against its two main rivals: _Finding Nemo_ maker Pixar Animation Studios, which is also a division of The Walt Disney Company, whose animation unit Katzenberg resuscitated as studio chief before he was forced out by Chief Executive Michael Eisner in 1994.  
  
When Spielberg, Geffen and Katzenberg announced the creation of DreamWorks that same year, they hailed it as an entertainment conglomerate for the digital future, cutting across music, movies and television.  
  
But since then, DreamWorks has sold its lackluster music label, closed its TV unit, shed its Internet aspirations, made its fledgling video game developer part and parcel of EA and abandoned plans for a sprawling studio lot in the new Playa Vista development on the Westside (which ended up being purchased and completed by Springbok Productions, the hot new success story of recent memory). Its arcade venture, GameWorks, is not having enough attendance to be profitable. As a result, all that essentially would remain of the original vision is the company’s live-action studio, headed by Spielberg, which produced the current releases _Anchorman_ and _The Terminal_.  
  
The proposed public offering underscores how computer animation, barely on DreamWorks’ radar screen when it was founded, has become by far its most valuable asset as audiences flock to the dazzling high-tech genre. But it also illustrates the dramatic narrowing of the company’s once-huge ambitions.  
  
DreamWorks’ three principals now are hoping their investments will pay off in a big way through the creation of the new DreamWorks Animation Inc.  
  
“They are morphing very much into what Pixar is,” said Santa Monica investment banker Michael Montgomery, a former top financial executive with DreamWorks. “They have already moved into it, and this just validates that move.”  
  
Katzenberg and Geffen would control the animation studio through a special class of voting shares, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing by the company. Spielberg’s role is expected to be more limited as he continues to focus on live-action features through former parent DreamWorks Studios, which would distribute the animated films. DreamWorks officials would not comment, citing SEC restrictions on discussing public offerings in advance.  
  
In taking his animation fiefdom public, the famously hands-on Katzenberg, one of Hollywood’s best-known executives, gets his first job as chief executive of a publicly held company.  
  
Working alongside him would be former PepsiCo Inc. Chief Executive Roger Enrico, who would become chairman of Glendale-based DreamWorks Animation. A familiar face on Wall Street, Enrico would serve as the company’s ambassador to the investment community, allowing Katzenberg to focus on creative matters.  
  
For DreamWorks, the new strategy comes with plenty of risks, holding it up to the kind of public investor scrutiny from which it has previously been insulated. Indeed, the SEC filing provides one of the first peeks into one of Hollywood’s most closely guarded sets of books.  
  
The company’s overall animation track record has been mixed, with such disappointments as _Sinbad_ and _The Road to El Dorado_ accompanying hits _Shrek_ , _Antz_ and _Chicken Run_. The animation unit lost $189 million in 2003 and has been profitable in only two of the last five years, the SEC filing says. But the numbers, which reflect various accounting adjustments, do not include proceeds from the blockbuster _Shrek 2_ , released in May.  
  
Other details in the filing: Katzenberg last year used the company’s jet for personal travel valued at $107,445. After the public offering, he is expected to receive stock options valued at $20.5 million.  
  
Despite DreamWorks’ mixed record in animation, industry analysts and experts predicted the public offering probably would do well, especially given the success of _Shrek 2_ , which has grossed more than $425 million in the U.S.  
  
“The reaction is generally going to be positive,” said Harold Vogel of Vogel Capital Management. “There will be great interest in this from portfolio managers and investors alike.”  
  
Still, Pixar remains the standard in computer animation, with a string of hits including _Nemo,_ _Toy Story_ , _Toy Story 2_ , _Monsters Inc._ and _A Bug’s Life_.  
  
Other studios, including Disney, Sony Pictures Entertainment and 20th Century Fox, as well as Star Wars producer George Lucas have computer-animated films in the works. Hollywood has made somewhat of a turn from hand-drawn animation as moviegoers have declared their preference for the computer-generated fare’s fresher look and edgier scripts. Studios also have enjoyed huge profits from DVD sales of the films. Though, to be fair, thanks to the likes of people like Springbok Productions and their animation division, Denver and Delilah Animation, releasing Don Bluth's _Dragon's Lair_ , there clearly still is an audience for traditional animation out there.  
  
But even the most prolific companies rarely release more than one film a year because they are so difficult to make. DreamWorks said it planned to release two a year, in addition to producing the computer-generated _Father of the Pride_ series for NBC this fall, despite the fact that the series, which focuses on the pet tigers of Siegfried & Roy, may seem like poor taste now after Roy Horn was mauled onstage by a tiger last October, and forced The Mirage in Las Vegas to close the hugely popular show.  
  
The public stock offering, expected in the fall, has been in the works for months and does not say what percentage of the company would be made available to investors. Some of the shares would be sold by current shareholders, but how much and by whom isn’t spelled out.  
  
The plan, if embraced by investors, would give DreamWorks Studios some breathing room from its lenders. It also would give its three founders their first chance to cash out some of their investment and allow DreamWorks’ main bankroller, billionaire Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, a way to extract some of his $660-million investment. A spokesman for Allen declined to comment.  
  
The offering’s proceeds also would help DreamWorks Animation fund its ambitious animated film slate, with as much as $175 million earmarked for general spending.  
  
“They have to shore up their balance sheet,” Vogel said. “They’ve been skating on and off thin ice for the last 10 years.”  
  
The spinoff announcement comes as DreamWorks is riding high because of _Shrek 2._ The offering is expected around the time of the October release of its next computer-animated film, _Shark Tale_.  
  
The announcement also comes as technology stocks are again in favor, with such offerings as Google Inc. helping whet investor appetites.  
  
“The scarcity of investment opportunities in this area would lead me to believe that an offering would be well received,” said Jordan Rohan, an analyst at Schwab SoundView.  
  
According to the SEC filing, DreamWorks Animation’s board would include such directors as Starbucks Inc. founder Howard Schultz, former Microsoft technology guru Nathan Myhrvold, former Bank of America Corp. securities chief Lewis Coleman, Geffen and Allen. Spielberg would not be a director.  
  
The documents show DreamWorks Animation employs 1200 people. By comparison, Disney’s animated division now employs about 650.

* * *

"How Springbok Changed the Music Industry," _Forbes_ , September 13, 2004

"I think that what Springbok, and Exploitation Records in particular, has done has made things far less stressful and acrimonious," Irving Azoff, who is a key player in the organization, states firmly. The massively successful manager (who has managed The Eagles (as well as the solo careers of Don Henley, Glenn Frey and Joe Walsh), REO Speedwagon, Journey, Lindsey Buckingham, Dan Fogelberg, Jennifer Lopez, Christina Aguilera, Sammy Hagar (until after the drama-filled Best Of Both Worlds tour with Van Halen, after which he split from the Red Rocker to manage Van Halen itself), Meat Loaf, and Nirvana; and who also managed MCA Records in the '80s before moving to Warners and founding Giant Records in the '90s), best known as being described by Don Henley as "our Satan", gives a "cat who ate the canary" smile as he talks. "A precedent was set. Every artist on the roster has artistic freedom, with the potential to earn the right to not have their albums rejected by the label. They have full ownership of their masters and timely and equitable royalty payments. The label treats each act and their release as a priority, with full connections to radio stations, MTV, VH1, and all the possibilities that the Internet has provided. You have to spend money to make money, and give the artists plenty of rope, including raises. Because it's the long-term revenue streams that matter most, not the money that comes in immediately."  
  
Azoff chuckles a little. "For too long, the labels and the executives that run them have been guilty of shortsightedness, continual laziness in wanting to repeat formulas, and milking every last cent out of their acts, without regard to the future. And without Springbok, that paradigm was never going to change. Because it's not just gaining all the acts we can that gives us joy. It's getting all the other labels, major and indie, to wake up and smell the coffee at last. I can say that our poaching of so many legacy acts and giving them a new lease on life did the trick. Because now, you have Sony, UMG, WEA, Disney and indies like Sanctuary, Frontiers and Edel AG sweetening the pot to their remaining artists so that they wouldn't jump ship and come to us. Because of that, we have almost eradicated litigation in that sector, and, along with how the industry as a whole changed by sensing that the Internet was going to be an important part of selling music and embracing selling MP3 files through their own websites early on, ensured that the coffers of the industry will always be nice and fat."  
  
Besides the recent purchases of two old independent labels to add prestige and assets to the company, as well as being the first new label (besides Jimmy Buffett's Mailboat Records) to retail directly to consumers without a third-party distributor (such as how the Disney-owned Hollywood Records is distributed via UMG), Springbok/Exploitation recently created a special advisory board in which many of the leading managers in the music industry today, regardless of whether or not any of their clients are signed to Exploitation Records, can get together and discuss new developments and use each other's clout to their advantage. Besides Azoff and Springbok figure Jerry Weintraub (who besides his legendary film production credits also managed John Denver and The Carpenters, and helped book Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley's performances), the advisory board is filled with many notable managers, including:  
  
-Howard Kaufman, once Azoff's lieutenant in the '70s, but later created his own agency with some of Azoff's clients, and manages the likes of Aerosmith, Stevie Nicks and Michael Jackson currently  
-John McClain and Dieter Weisner, other members of Michael Jackson's management team  
-Ray Danniels, longtime manager of Rush, and previously also managed Extreme and Van Halen during the '90s  
-Larry Rudolph, manager of Britney Spears  
-Punch Andrews, longtime manager of Bob Seger and now also manages Kid Rock  
-Allen Kovac, manager of Meat Loaf, Richard Marx, Yes, Blondie, Deborah Harry, Hanson, Ashba and Motley Crue  
-David Sonenberg, manager of Meat Loaf's famed collaborator Jim Steinman, and also manages the likes of Joan Osborne, The Spin Doctors, The Fugees and Wyclef Jean  
-Jerry Heller, hip-hop manager who cut his teeth with N.W.A.  
-Roger Davies, longtime manager of Tina Turner and Janet Jackson, former manager of Olivia Newton-John and also currently manages Cher and Pink  
-Merck Mercuriadis, current manager of Elton John and Guns N' Roses  
-Andy Gould, manager of Rob Zombie and co-manager of Guns N' Roses and Pantera  
-Walter O'Brien, manager of Pantera and related side projects Down, Superjoint Ritual and Damageplan  
-Jim Beach, longtime manager of Queen, even after the death of Freddie Mercury  
-Sandy Gallin, former manager of Cher and Michael Jackson in the late '80s and early '90s, manager of Dolly Parton and partner in their production company Sandollar Productions, responsible for _Buffy the Vampire Slayer_  
-Rene Angelil, manager and husband of Celine Dion  
-Elliott Roberts, founder of Asylum Records with David Geffen in 1970, former manager of Jackson Browne, Tom Petty, Bob Dylan, and Talking Heads, and longtime manager of Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, Tracy Chapman and The Cars  
-Jeff Rosen, current manager of Bob Dylan  
-Richard Bishop and Seppo Vestrinerien, former managers of '80s glam metal band Hanoi Rocks, whom Exploitation Records has recently signed with hopes to make the reformed band finally break through in North America  
-C.M. Murphy, manager of Australian band INXS  
-Guy Oseary, manager of Madonna and partner in Maverick Records  
-Paul McGuinness, longtime manager of U2, as well as PJ Harvey  
-Frank DiLeo, former manager of Michael Jackson and Madonna  
-John Silva, once Nirvana's main manager in Gold Mountain Entertainment, but still part of their management team  
-Danny Goldberg, once Silva's partner in Gold Mountain, and previously cut his teeth being North American manager for Led Zeppelin and The Allman Brothers Band  
-Steve Stewart, longtime manager of Stone Temple Pilots  
-Peter Mensch and Cliff Burnstein, heads of Q Prime, management branch for Metallica, The Smashing Pumpkins and Red Hot Chili Peppers  
-Doc McGhee, manager of Kiss, Scorpions, Hootie & the Blowfish, and Skid Row, former manager of Motley Crue and Bon Jovi  
-Susan Silver, manager of Soundgarden and Alice in Chains  
-Phil Ehart, drummer and manager of Kansas  
-Bud Carr, former manager of Kansas until 1989  
-Joe Rascoff, business manager for The Rolling Stones  
-Joyce Smyth, lawyer and manager for Mick Jagger  
-Jane Rose, Keith Richards' manager  
-Lee and John Eastman, manager and lawyer for Paul McCartney, also father and brother of his wife, Linda  
-Danny Sugerman, manager of The Doors as a brand since the death of Jim Morrison and manager of the new live version, The Doors of the 21st Century  
-Bill Curbishley, manager of The Who and Roger Daltrey's solo career  
-Richard Flanzer, manager of Jackson Browne and former manager of Roger Daltrey  
-David Spero, former manager of Michael Stanley and Joe Walsh, manager of Cat Stevens/Yusuf Islam and Dave Mason  
-Tony Smith, manager of Genesis and the solo careers of Phil Collins, Tony Banks and Mike Rutherford  
-Anita Camarata, credited as manager of the Sex Pistols as a brand, and personal manager of Steve Jones  
-Sharon Osbourne, wife and manager of Ozzy Osbourne as well as manager of Black Sabbath  
-Wendy Dio, wife and manager of Ronnie James Dio  
  
When queried about whether the new advisory board effectively means the music industry is now a de facto oligarchy, Azoff merely chuckles once more. "What else is new? If anything, it's always been that way. We're basically making it more honest."

* * *

"Consortium Led By Sony Corporation Of America, Providence Equity Partners, Texas Pacific Group, Comcast Corporation And DLJ Merchant Banking Partners Enters Into Definitive Agreement To Acquire Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer", BusinessWire, September 23, 2004

New York and Los Angeles - A consortium led by Sony Corporation of America and its equity partners Providence Equity Partners, Texas Pacific Group, Comcast Corporation and DLJ Merchant Banking Partners, together with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. (NYSE: MGM), announced today that they have entered into a definitive agreement under which the investor group will acquire MGM for $12.00 in cash per MGM share, plus the assumption of MGM's approximately $2.0 billion in debt.

The investor group has committed a total of $1.6 billion in equity financing to acquire MGM as follows: Providence Equity Partners -- $525 million, Texas Pacific Group -- $350 million, Sony Corporation of America -- $300 million, Comcast Corporation -- $300 million, and DLJ Merchant Banking Partners -- $125 million. JPMorgan Chase has committed to lead a bank syndicate to provide up to $4.25 billion in senior debt financing together with Credit Suisse First Boston.

From today until closing, MGM will continue as an active producer of film and television projects, and will continue to greenlight projects under the MGM and United Artists banners in the ordinary course of business consistent with its current business plan. Following the closing of the transaction, MGM will continue to operate under the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer name as a private company headquartered in Los Angeles.

Also following the close, Sony Pictures Entertainment will co-finance and produce new motion pictures with MGM as well as distribute MGM's existing film and television content through Sony Pictures' global distribution channels.

As previously announced, Comcast, Sony Pictures Entertainment and the equity partners in the MGM transaction have agreed to a broad programming and distribution arrangement that will allow for the distribution of Sony Pictures' and MGM content on Comcast's video on demand platform, and for the creation of a joint venture, to be managed by Comcast, establishing new cable channels featuring Sony Pictures and MGM content.

"We are delighted to be able to make this announcement today together with our partners," said Sir Howard Stringer, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Sony Corporation of America. "We all look forward to preserving and enhancing the legendary franchise that is MGM, and to ensuring that its extraordinary content continues to be enjoyed by people around the world."

"This is a compelling strategic transaction that will give MGM the ideal partners to build on its unique legacy," said Alex Yemenidjian, Chairman and CEO of MGM. "This transaction will deliver the full value of MGM to our shareholders, while creating significant value-creation opportunities for the new owners and expanded options for consumers to enjoy MGM's content."

"This transaction presents a unique opportunity to enhance the value of MGM's exceptional film library through the world-class distribution capabilities of both Sony and Comcast," said Jonathan Nelson, Chief Executive Officer of Providence Equity Partners Inc. "We look forward to working closely with our fellow investors to increase the value of MGM's content in the years ahead."

"We are delighted to join with such a powerful group of partners in this acquisition of a truly legendary entertainment company," said Kelvin Davis, partner, Texas Pacific Group. "We're excited about the opportunity to build upon the unique film franchises which MGM has developed over its distinguished history."

Comcast Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Brian L. Roberts said, "This is a terrific partnership. We are delighted to be working with Sony and the other partners to substantially expand the content available to our customers, and our direct investment further underscores our excitement over this opportunity."

"We believe this landmark transaction - partnering with two great global entertainment companies - is an exciting opportunity for both our partners and investors," said Thompson Dean, Managing Partner of DLJ Merchant Banking Partners.

The transaction, which has been approved by the Board of Directors of MGM, is subject to the approval of MGM shareholders, various regulatory approvals and customary closing conditions. Tracinda Corporation and 250 Rodeo Inc., MGM's principal shareholders, have entered into a Voting and Support Agreement agreeing to vote their shares in favor of the proposed merger. The merger agreement contains no financing contingency.* The transaction is expected to close in mid-2005. Employees of MGM and its subsidiaries will have the opportunity to be considered for available positions that may arise as a result of the transaction.

JPMorgan Chase is acting as the lead arranger for all of the debt financing, and Credit Suisse First Boston is a co-underwriter. Credit Suisse First Boston, JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup are acting as financial advisors to the investor group. Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Bank of America Securities are acting as financial advisors to MGM. Allen & Company, Inc. and The Blackstone Group L.P. are acting as advisors to Sony Corporation of America.

*Note: JP Morgan Chase and Credit Suisse First Boston have committed to provide the consortium with up to $4.25 billion in senior debt financing. Pursuant to the merger agreement, the consortium's obligation to acquire MGM is conditioned upon, among other things, consummation of the debt financing on the terms set forth in the commitment letters delivered by JPMorgan Chase and Credit Suisse First Boston or substitute financing, which, if the debt financing commitments become unavailable, the consortium is obligated to use its reasonable best efforts to obtain.

About Sony Corporation of America  
Sony Corporation of America, based in New York City, is the U.S. subsidiary of Sony Corporation, headquartered in Tokyo. Sony is a leading manufacturer of audio, video, communications, and information technology products for the consumer and professional markets. Its music, motion picture, television, computer entertainment, and online businesses make Sony one of the most comprehensive entertainment companies in the world. Sony's principal U.S. businesses include Sony Electronics Inc., Sony Pictures Entertainment, Sony Computer Entertainment America Inc., and a 50% interest in Sony BMG Music Entertainment, one of the largest recorded music companies in the world. Sony recorded consolidated annual sales of over $72 billion for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2004, and it employs 162,000 people worldwide. Sony's consolidated sales in the U.S. for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2004 were $20.4 billion. 

About Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc.  
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. (NYSE: MGM), through its Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. subsidiary, is actively engaged in the worldwide production and distribution of motion pictures, television programming, home video, interactive media, music and licensed merchandise. The company owns the world's largest library of modern films, comprising about 4000 titles. Operating units include MGM Pictures, United Artists, Orion Pictures MGM Television Entertainment, MGM Networks, MGM Distribution Co., MGM Worldwide Television Distribution, MGM Home Entertainment, MGM On Stage, MGM Consumer Products, MGM Music, MGM Interactive and MGM Direct. In addition, MGM has ownership interests in international TV channels reaching nearly 110 countries. 

About Providence Equity Partners Inc.  
Providence Equity Partners Inc. is one of the world's leading private investment firms specializing in equity investments in media and communications companies. The principals of Providence Equity manage funds with over $9 billion in equity commitments and have invested in more than 70 companies operating in over 20 countries since the firm's inception in 1991. Current and previous areas of investment include cable television content and distribution, wireless and wireline telephony, publishing, radio and television broadcasting and other media and communications sectors. Significant investments include VoiceStream Wireless, Warner Music Group, PanAmSat, AT&T Canada, eircom plc, Casema, Kabel Deutschland, Language Line, F&W Publications, ProSiebenSat.1, Springbok Productions and Bresnan Broadband Holdings. 

About Texas Pacific Group  
Texas Pacific Group, founded in 1993 and based in Fort Worth, Texas, San Francisco and London, is one of the world's leading private investment firms managing over $13 billion in assets. TPG looks to invest in world-class franchises across a range of industries, including significant investments in branded consumer franchises (Burger King, Del Monte, Ducati), media (Springbok Productions), leading retailers (Petco, J.Crew, Debenhams - UK), healthcare (Oxford Health Plans, Quintiles Transnational), technology companies (ON Semiconductor, MEMC, Seagate), and airlines (Continental, America West), among others.

About Comcast  
Comcast Corporation is principally involved in the development, management and operation of broadband cable networks, and in the provision of programming content. The Company is the largest provider of cable and broadband services in the United States, serving more than 21 million cable television customers and more than 6 million high-speed Internet customers. The Company's content businesses include majority ownership of Comcast Spectacor, Comcast SportsNet, E! Entertainment Television, Style Network, G4techTV, The Golf Channel, International Channel and Outdoor Life Network. Comcast Class A common stock and Class A Special common stock trade on The Nasdaq Stock Market under the symbols CMCSA and CMCSK, respectively.

About DLJ Merchant Banking Partners  
DLJ Merchant Banking Partners (DLJMB) is a leading private equity investor that has a 19-year record of investing in leveraged buyouts and related transactions across a broad range of industries. DLJMB, with offices in New York, London, Houston and Buenos Aires, is part of Credit Suisse First Boston's Alternative Capital Division (ACD), which is one of the largest alternative asset managers in the world with more than $36 billion of assets under management. ACD is comprised of $20 billion of private equity assets under management across a diverse family of funds, including leveraged buyout funds, mezzanine funds, real estate funds, venture capital funds, fund of funds and secondary funds, as well as more than $16 billion of assets under management through its hedge fund (both direct and fund of funds), leveraged loan and CDO businesses.

* * *

"The First Five Years...And What We Can Expect The Next Five To Be Like," Springbok Press release, October 16, 2004

As to the future, much can be expected. New additions to help lead (or be point men for) the various branches of the company, taken from various legends of the industry, continue to occur. Among these additions are legendary film producers David V. Picker, Robert Evans and Albert S. Ruddy, former CAA head Michael Ovitz, former New Line Cinema/DreamWorks figure Michael De Luca, former Disney and 20th Century Fox producer Bill Mechanic, film producers Mark Damon and Donald Kushner (who both worked on _Monster_ , and Mr. Kushner also was a producer for _Tron_ as well as creator of the Kushner-Locke Company, which created _The Brave Little Toaster,_ and is now official folded into Denver and Delilah Animation) and Sony Music chairman Don Ienner. And while not directly involved in the company, Springbok also has very cordial and close relations with Howard and Robert Stringer of Sony; Sony Pictures head Amy Pascal; Michael Eisner, Bob Iger, John Lasseter and Meryl Poster of Disney, Sam Raimi and Robert Tapert of Renaissance Pictures and Ghost House Pictures; George Lucas and the entire Lucasfilm family, film producers Kathleen Kennedy and Frank Marshall; Steven Spielberg and Jeffrey Katzenberg and much of the Amblin Entertainment/DreamWorks Pictures family; Interscope Records/Universal Music Group head Jimmy Iovine; film director Luc Besson; Robert Shaye and Michael Lynne of New Line Cinema; longtime Batman executive producers Benjamin Melniker and Michael E. Uslan; visionary director James Cameron and his production company Lightstorm Entertainment; director Ridley Scott, his brother Tony and their production company Scott Free Productions; film producing legends Barry Diller and Bill Haber (and their stage production group USA Ostar Theatricals); Studio Ghibli and other anime production companies; _Shonen Jump_ and Viz Media; Stuart Levy and Tokyopop; Adult Swim founder and head Mike Lazzo; Broadway producers Barry and Fran Weissler, Leonard Soloway, Bob Boyett, Lawrence Horowitz, Roy Furman and Michael Gardner; concert promoters Michael Cohl, Robert F.X. Sillerman, Randy Phillips, David Fishof, David Gest, Frank Barsalona, Harvey Goldsmith and Mr. Udo; stage producer Cameron Mackintosh; and Andrew Lloyd Webber and his Really Useful Group production company.  
  
Springbok has officially announced the creation of a new division dedicated to creating English dubs of popular anime, as well as film and television adaptations of the same. Dubbed Enima (anime spelled backwards, as well as reflecting Kurt's sense of humor), this division is expected to help bring about a massive upswing in international popularity for a notable art form, and attract the absolute best, talented individuals to bring the characters and stories to life. Enima will have much to talk about by this time next year, having been invited to be keynote speakers at Anime Weekend Atlanta 2005, and is also currently working hand in glove with Disney for their dubs of the films of Studio Ghibli and visionary director Hayao Miyazaki.  
  
Denver and Delilah Animation officially is proud to confirm the reports are true...a ten episode, 20-hour adaptation of the film _Titan AE_ is in the works. Produced in conjunction with Tom Hanks and his production company Playtone, the series will premiere on HBO in the summer of 2007. _Titan AE_ tells the story of an alien invasion that destroys the Earth, the human survivors struggling to adapt in the far reaches of space, and other intelligent life forms that they interact with. But when embittered loner Cale Tucker learns that his long-deceased scientist father hid a powerful ship known as the _Titan_ , which contains the ability to create a new planet for humanity, an intense, white-knuckle race to find it is on. The series will take the basic story of the original 2000 film and expand upon it, with further fleshed out backstories, thrilling obstacles at every corner, and a greater list of supporting characters to bring the universe into great detail. The show features a highly talented cast, including Nathan Fillion ( _Firefly_ ) as Cale, Patrick Swayze as Joseph Korso, the swaggering captain of the _Valkyrie_ and oldest friend of Cale's father, Gwendoline Yeo ( _Final Fantasy X-2_ ) as Akima, the ship's pilot and foil to Cale, Dana Snyder ( _Aqua Teen Hunger Force_ , _Squidbillies_ ) as Preed, the sarcastic and sardonic first mate, Winona Ryder as Stith, the temperamental weapons specialist and gunner, and Jeff Goldblum as Gune, the neurotic navigator and inventor. Also featured in the show, as a variety of new characters, are the likes of Sigourney Weaver, Linda Hamilton, Ken Watanabe, Michael Madsen, Viola Davis, Tara Strong, William Fichtner and Tom Hanks. And as a link to the past, Ron Perlman reprises his role in the film as Professor Sam Tucker, the inventor of the _Titan_. The series is co-created and developed by Brian Helgeland, the talented screenwriter behind _L.A. Confidential_ and _Mystic River_ , who is also the show's frontrunner. Original film directors Don Bluth and Gary Goldman will serve as executive producers.  
  
In addition to its work on Adult Swim that is currently known, such as _ATHF_ and the forthcoming _Squidbillies_ , another production for the programming block is in the works. Entitled _Metalocalypse_ , the show, created by Brandon Small of _Home Movies_ , revolves around metal group Dethklok and their dealing with a level of fame and fan hysteria that puts The Beatles to shame. It is expected to drop in 2006. But Denver and Delilah is not content to simply create animation for more mature audiences. Besides its continuing involvement in _Code Lyoko_ , it is proud to announce, that debuting shortly on Nickelodeon, it will be involved in a breathtaking and wholly original new concept entitled _Avatar: The Last Airbender_. Set against a dazzling backdrop inspired heavily by Chinese mythology and martial arts, the show tells the story of world, centered on the four elements of water, earth, fire and air, at war against the encroaching and tyrannical reach of the Fire Nation, where only the Avatar, the master of all four elements, can save them. But the road to such a victory is long and arduous, and filled with discovery along the way.  
  
While development on massive tentpole features for 2005 such as _Batman Begins_ and _Memoirs of a Geisha_ have been underway, Springbok was in successful negotiations to officially purchase fellow production company Brandywine Productions, the group responsible for the _Alien_ franchise, and which has been sitting dormant since the polarizing 1992 release of _Alien 3_ and a cancelled sequel to that film. While it is far too early to say anything definitively, Springbok is confident that a legendary franchise can surely be resurrected to its former glory that the original two movies established. After all, the success of the Disney theme parks attraction _Alien: Terror Incarnate_ has demonstrated that there is a definite audience waiting for such an event. Springbok has also purchased Lexington Road Productions. An active financier in film, television and theatre, it is managed by sister company, East of Doheny (East of Doheny will remain independent). Theatre credits include Broadway productions of _Not About Nightingales_ and _Sweet Smell of Success_ ; _National Tour of Art_ ; London productions of _Cressida_ and _Napoleon_ , L.A. production of _Flower Drum Song_. Films include _Merchant of Venice_ shown on the BBC and Masterpiece Theatre (PBS); the John Sayles movie _Men With Guns_ ; the IMAX film _Siegfried & Roy: The Magic Box_; and theatricals _A Time for Dancing_ and _The Big Empty_. The coin of Lexington Road Productions will help in financing and production of other projects, including the financing of documentaries by other producers. In addition, it has been officially confirmed that negotiations to enter a three-picture deal with Mel Gibson's Icon Productions have concluded satisfactorily. We are truly blessed to be working with Mel, Bruce Davey, and the rest of the Icon family, the same team responsible for the likes of _Braveheart_ and _We Were Soldiers_. Mel's work behind the camera is truly something to admire, and we are proud to help make more cinematic history together.  
  
Kurt and Nirvana's very good friends Tenacious D, headed by actors Jack Black and Kyle Gass, are also considered important members of the Springbok family. Ever since assisting with the production and release of their 2001 self-titled album and JB's iconic role in the Springbok-produced 2003 hit film _The School of Rock_ , plans for a feature length Tenacious D film and a soundtrack album are proceeding quite smoothly. Scheduled to be released by New Line Cinema sometime in 2006, it promises to be hilarious and truly rocking.  
  
With the success of legendary lyricist and producer Jim Steinman's _Dance of the Vampires_ , the early workshop production of the forthcoming musical _Lestat_ , and impressive reviews for the film adaptation of _The Phantom of the Opera_ , Springbok's musical theatre arm is naturally keen to continue to grow. Plans for a somewhat revamped stage version of _Phantom_ for a North American tour and a Las Vegas spectacular are in the works, to incorporate some of the changes in the film, and possibly encourage the same to happen in the main New York, London, Toronto and L.A. productions. Springbok also plans to assist in a Broadway transfer of Andrew Lloyd Webber's new musical, _The Woman in White_ , currently playing in the West End, as well as mounting an American tour and later a full production of _Whistle Down the Wind_ , his collaboration with Mr. Steinman, which broke box office records during its three-year run in London's Aldwych Theatre. Springbok has officially signed a deal with Walt Disney Theatrical to help work on their planned stage transfers of _Tarzan_ , _The Little Mermaid_ and _Mary Poppins_ , as well as an English version of their stage transfer of _The Hunchback of Notre Dame_ , which played successfully for three years in Berlin, Germany. Springbok has thrown money into (though is not fully producing) a film version of the successful Broadway musical adaptation of Mel Brooks' _The Producers_ , is fully producing additional stage versions of the same, and is working with Mr. Brooks on planned musical versions of _Young Frankenstein_ and _Blazing Saddles_. In addition, Springbok is throwing money to produce a large-scale revival of Barry Keating's _Starmites_ , which played on Broadway in 1989 and had a recent revival in 2001, along with countless high school and college productions since. They will be assisted by Mr. Steinman, who is Mr. Keating's oldest and best friend, as well as Mary Keil, who produced the original version and joined Mr. Steinman in producing _Starmites 2001_. Mr. Steinman is also keen to turn the legendary _Bat Out of Hell_ trilogy into a full-fledged stage musical spectacular, based somewhat on his original 1977 Stuart Ostrow Musical Theatre Lab production _Neverland_ at the Kennedy Center (itself based on his 1969 Amherst College production _The Dream Engine_ ), which evolved into the albums, which Springbok is eager to make a reality. (Sadly, despite rumors, Mr. Steinman's other big dream, a musical version of Tim Burton's _Batman_ , will not come to fruition, as _Batman Begins_ has officially made Warner Bros. decide to break away from the past once and for all. Nor will there be London and/or New York productions of Warner Brown's musical _Garbo_ , to which Mr. Steinman composed melodies and which opened to indifferent reactions in Stockholm in September 2002.) Springbok is keeping tabs on the announced collaboration between Stephen King and John Mellencamp, _Ghost Brothers of Darkland County_ , which promises to be unlike any other musical in the past. It is also hoped that an English-language production of Michael Kunze's popular European musical, _Elisabeth_ , will also be in the works. Herr Kunze wrote the original book for _Dance of the Vampires_ , and he truly is an underrated talent that must be more renowned. And long-gestating plans for film versions of the legendary musicals _Sweeney Todd_ and _Les Miserables_ are planned to be in Springbok's future.  
  
Exploitation Records plans to take advantage of its recent signing of Finnish glam metal band Hanoi Rocks to help bring them to the forefront. The band, which the members of Guns N' Roses have long acknowledged as being a major influence on them, were on the verge of megastardom when their drummer, Nicholas "Razzle" Dingley, died in a vehicular manslaughter incident involving Motley Crue frontman Vince Neil in December 1984. The band broke up shortly afterwards, but in 2002, the two key members, frontman Michael Monroe and lead guitarist Andy McCoy, decided to reform a "reborn" Hanoi Rocks, that did not involve any of the other surviving original members. Their 2002 return album, _Twelve Shots on the Rocks_ , was initially released without any real traction. So, to take advantage of the release of their forthcoming new album next year, Exploitation Records will relaunch the entire Hanoi discography to give them the spotlight they deserve. Particular attention will be given to the last album as well as 1984's _Two Steps from the Move_ , with their anthemic hits "Don't You Ever Leave Me", "Underwater World", "Million Miles Away" and a rousing cover of Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Up Around the Bend." Exploitation Records is also takings its efforts to relaunch and showcase a band that actually is not currently active (and never will be again)...Oingo Boingo, the band fronted by Danny Elfman, who later went on to a renowned career scoring films, particularly his lengthy collaborations with director Tim Burton. Treating the group as an active entity, the entire Oingo Boingo discography will be relaunched with extensive promotion, including splashy, high-concept music videos combining footage from the pre-existing clips, live performance footage, and all new scenes in live action or animation to demonstrate the stories in the lyrics. A special remastered version of their live album and video _Farewell: Live from the Universal Amphitheatre-Halloween 1995_ is in the works, as is a massive CD/DVD box set showcasing the band's entire series of its legendary Halloween concerts at Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre and Universal Amphitheatre over its career. With all this, a band that toiled in obscurity its entire career will be admired and beloved by the public at large at last.  
  
And lastly, Springbok has officially decided to drop its hat in the ring of the world of video games, veering from simply throwing in money to help fund titles on a "special thanks" basis, to being actively involved in the development. While the plans for this part of the company are admittedly empty at the moment, that will change in time.

* * *

"Springbok Throws Its Hat into Anime Ring, Links Arms With Disney, Miyazaki", Anime News Network, October 18, 2004

Springbok Productions, the five-year-old success story founded by Kurt Cobain and Charlize Theron, has announced as part of its aggressive expansion plans that it is expanding into the world of anime dubs and live action film and television adaptations of renowned anime series.

Dubbed Enima Studios (called as such by Cobain, because it is "anime" spelled backwards and also is clearly meant to be a humorous name, sounding like "enema"), the new Springbok division is hitting the ground running. It already announced a long-term partnership with The Walt Disney Company to be of assistance in the House of Mouse's distribution partnership in the films of Studio Ghibli, especially those of legendary director Hayao Miyazaki. Enima is joining Disney and Pixar/Walt Disney Animation Studios creative head John Lasseter in overseeing the English dubs yet to come in the deal. Currently, they are working on dubs for _Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, Porco Rosso_ , and the mid-length film _The Cat Returns_ , a semi-sequel to the renowned 1995 film _Whisper of the Heart_ (though that film is definitely coming up soon on the list.) Both are also hard at work making the English dub for Miyazaki's latest film, _Howl's Moving Castle_ , which will be released in North America next summer.

As for the film adaptation element, Enima is said to be looking into the rights for the recently-published manga series _Death Note_ and to co-produce James Cameron's teased adaptation of _Battle Angel Alita_. Springbok, especially Cobain, has notable bona fides in the world of anime and manga, as Springbok's debut film was a live-action film adaptation of _Ghost in the Shell_ , and Cobain is known to be friends with several notable manga authors like _Sailor Moon_ creator Naoko Takaeuchi and _Ranma 1/2_ and _Inuyasha_ author Rumiko Takahashi, as well as with Tokyopop head Stuart Levy. Cobain and his ex-wife Courtney Love are also inspirations for the main characters in Levy's recent manga series _Princess Ai_.

* * *

" _V_ _ampires'_ Last _Dance_ on Broadway?", _Entertainment Weekly_ , October 28, 2004

The massively successful rock musical _Dance of the Vampires_ , co-written and fully composed by Jim Steinman and produced by Springbok Productions, may close earlier than anticipated, if rumors are to be believed.

The show, an English-language translation of the successful German musical _Tanz der Vampire_ , which is still running in Austria and Germany (though now revamped to match the U.S. production), premiered to massive ticket sales at the Minskoff Theatre in October 2002, buoyed by the cast, including the likes of Meat Loaf and Michael Crawford, as well as the now incredibly famous young talent Mandy Gonzalez as the female lead. The cast recording and concept albums released by Springbok's Exploitation Records, continue to sell extremely well, and even managed to find a surprisingly large amount of exposure on radio, MTV and VH1. A concert video of the production with the original cast has done likewise, eclipsing even the success of the 1998 video of _Cats_ , and is constantly rerun on the BBC and PBS. And despite plenty of objections by the press, the audience clearly made it a massive hit, as well as nabbing a surprise number of Tony Awards at the 2003 ceremony, for Loaf, Crawford, Gonzalez and Steinman.

However, ticket sales for the New York version have started to wane recently. This trend started to some degree after Loaf and Crawford filled out their year-long contracts and decided not to renew, with Loaf going back to release the hit album _Bat Out of Hell III_ and then out on the road to promote it, and Crawford being free to play the role of the villainous Count Fosco in Andrew Lloyd Webber's most recent production, _The Woman in White_ , on the West End. There were supremely talented replacements for the lead male roles, with Drew Sarich taking over for Loaf, and Rene Auberjonois for Crawford, being the latter's first stage musical since _City of Angels_. But quite a few audience members lamented the loss of the original cast, and began stating in online reviews that the experience wasn't quite the same anymore. "Meat Loaf and Michael Crawford ARE DOTV," one such review on Playbill.com states. Some people even state betrayal at Springbok's part, for their decision to produce another vampire musical, _Lestat_ , which will have a San Francisco tryout in late 2005 before premiering in New York the following spring. This musical will be based on the popular book series by Anne Rice, and composed by Elton John and Bernie Taupin. "How DARE KC and CT give up on DOTV and move to promote that MOR shlock instead?!", says one posting.

Furthermore, it is a known truism that Broadway productions tend to be fairly expensive ("costing four times more than they do anywhere else", as one source puts it), particularly with Actors' Equity rates in New York and paying full rates to standby orchestra members even when they don't work, a problem that can sink productions even if they are successful and actually making a profit. Such was the case with the Broadway version of Des McAnuff and Pete Townshend's stage musical production of _Tommy_ , with rising operating costs due to its heavy usage of effects and union rates for actors and standby musicians. Supposedly, when Auberjonois came on to the show, his agent, Peter Strain, asked for a considerable salary for his client during negotiations, somewhat more than usual for an actor of his status, which could possibly be draining away at the weekly profits. Some also posit that certain people are refusing to pay tickets to attend the show as an act of protest against Springbok's recent decision to award a three-picture deal to Mel Gibson, given the firestorm of controversy surrounding his recent film, _The Passion of the Christ_. There is also the fact Steinman has not been seen around outside or near the show lately, apparently due to cardiac health issues requiring physical therapy. (Calls to Steinman's manager David Sonenberg for a comment went unanswered.)

Jerry Weintraub, the film and music mogul who is an individual producer of _DOTV_ as well as a major figure in Springbok, categorically denies the reports. "We have no intention of closing the show. Our plan, Jim's plan, has always been to run for at least four years at the Minskoff, and we have the profits to justify it. There is still a considerable crowd at the performances, and they love the show just as much, even without Meat and Crawford. Rene is a class act, and hasn't been difficult at all, any talk of playing hardball with his salary is simply not true. In addition, all these so called 'fan boycott' theories tend to be pure hogwash. They never have anywhere near enough power to derail films or shows and tank them. The numbers speak for themselves. As regarding Jim's health, to the best of my knowledge, it is excellent and he's doing quite fine. I think I would know if he'd had a heart attack or a stroke."

Regardless of whether or not _DOTV_ bows out on Broadway sooner than expected, the show itself won't be hurt. Besides the revamped German-language version, it has received a rapturous welcome in London, Toronto, Los Angeles, Sydney, Tokyo, Warsaw, Paris, Moscow, St. Petersburg, Copenhagen, St. Gallen, and Mexico City. A massive North American tour has been rolling out to great success, and a UK tour is doing likewise.

* * *

"Australian Dialogue: Mel Gibson and Bruce Davey" by Stephen Galloway, _The Hollywood Reporter_ , November 15, 2004

It's somewhat hard to believe that Mel Gibson and Bruce Davey and their Icon Productions company face the same challenges and hardships faced by most independents, but chatting with the blue-jeaned business duo in their Santa Monica office, one is struck mainly by how down-to-earth and down-in-the-trenches they are. They fight for projects they believe in and often have to make do with a "no." "The first script we optioned when we formed this company 15 years ago, _Thank You for Smoking_ \-- we still haven't gotten to make it yet," Gibson says, opining that the material is too politically incorrect for Hollywood's tastes. Of course, they keep trying: "It's like an old engine you return to every few months," Gibson says. Persistence is an Icon hallmark, and it has paid off on projects from 1995's _Braveheart_ to the February Newmarket Films release _The Passion of the Christ_ , which was more than 13 years in the making. And that is to say nothing of their recent three-picture deal with Springbok Productions, the production company formed by Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain and his wife, Charlize Theron, who just won an Oscar for her mesmerizing portrayal of Aileen Wuornos in the Disney/Touchstone Pictures and Newmarket dual release _Monster_. The duo spoke recently with Stephen Galloway for _The Hollywood Reporter_ and discussed why, even with such a high-profile partnership deal, they have no long-term business plan -- preferring to operate instinctively -- and approach their work on a project-by-project basis.

The Hollywood Reporter: When you set up Icon 15 years ago, to do 1990's _Hamlet_ , what did you want the company to become?  
Mel Gibson: I wasn't too sure, to tell you the truth. I think it was a genuine desire to exploit my own creativity; it was not a complete vision. Then Bruce and I both received a baptism of fire when it came to _Hamlet_.  
Bruce Davey: It was truly an independent film in terms of raising the finance. It was the old patchwork quilt -- you'd nail a piece to the wall, and two pieces would fall off. We had to go and find another two pieces.  
THR: Were you already thinking of moving beyond acting back then, Mel?  
Gibson: Yes, I think I was. I don't even know if it was a conscious decision. But I think subconsciously, I was. I find that there's a lot more pleasure in directing than there is in acting. You have a chance to spread your creative wings, and nobody can clip them.  
THR: What was the hardest thing at that early point?  
Gibson: Finding people who would take you seriously. A lot of companies had been set up by actors, and they were perceived as vanity vehicles.  
THR: Do you have any philosophy guiding the material that you look for?  
Gibson: I have a fairly eclectic and sometimes peculiar taste. (Something like 2003's _The Singing Detective_ ) doesn't have "hit" written all over it. But if you can manage to do a reasonable or a good job, for a price, then it becomes feasible, perhaps even lucrative. All films become lucrative if they're made for the right price.  
THR: Do you think a lot about that going in?  
Gibson: I didn't use to, but it has become a very real thing for me. It's not a driving factor, but I have been educated over the years by Bruce. I have said this before: I am a fiscal imbecile, but I am getting better.  
THR: What have you learned from Bruce?  
Gibson: He is very savvy about business and about a different way of doing things. Eventually, that starts to rub off.  
THR: How did you two meet?  
Gibson: I was looking for a way to invest, and Bruce was in the investment line as an accountant. I went into his office when I was very young, and he was much younger. (Laughter)  
Davey: We had a client/accountant relationship (in Australia), and then I came over here toward the end of the '80s, about 1988, (and set up Icon). At that point in time, it was just to do _Hamlet_.  
THR: And did you bring the business strategy to the equation?  
Davey: I don't think we have ever had a five-minute plan, let alone a five-year plan; it has just been one of evolution.  
THR: You don't have a General Electric "Six Sigma" approach to business?  
Gibson: I don't know that you can apply a set of rules to everything.  
Davey: Particularly, the creative process. How many times have you picked up _The Hollywood Reporter_ and seen some Joe Schmo who's got a 15-picture deal -- and how many of the 15 ever get made? It's about the evolution of what goes on around the table. (Who knows if a film) is going to happen twice in a year? I think about _Braveheart_. We did nothing for two years after that -- we couldn't get arrested.  
Gibson: The creative process can be elusive and frustrating, and sometimes, if you aren't in the right space, it can just fall out. There are no rules for any of it.  
THR: Do you have many projects in the works now? How many are you developing?  
Gibson: It's perhaps 30, and the spectrum is pretty wide.  
THR: You've recently moved into television as well as films, and now you're producing ABC's _Complete Savages_. Why?  
Davey: (We read) maybe 1500 or 2000 scripts a year, and we'd sit in a development meeting and people would say, "That's best for TV," and it would get thrown on the heap. Finally, we thought we should be doing something about that.  
Gibson: What is really astounding is the amount of pressure for this kind of weekly television thing. I've never seen anything like it.  
THR: Do you ever say, "My heart's not really in this, but I think this is going to make money?"  
Davey: I don't think it's ever really been about the money. In terms of television, if you go back to the beginnings of it, the first thing we did was (the 2000 ABC telefilm) _The Three Stooges,_ which came out of Mel's passion for the Three Stooges. Nobody said, "We can make a bunch of money out of this."  
Gibson: The first consideration is always creative. Always. Then there are these other things like a feasibility study after you get the initial spark.  
THR: Beyond each individual project, what makes a business partnership work?  
Gibson: It helps that he doesn't run off to South America! (Laughter) There's mutual respect and, where I am short, I know Bruce fills in more than adequately.  
THR: Are you very involved with the films you produce?  
Gibson: Yes, sure. I am not overbearing -- you have an editor, you have a guy who directs and you check in and talk it over with them. And you try and allow (the director) his creative freedom. Every now and again, you are going to have a rocky ride. But by and large, we can pride ourselves that we haven't left too many dead bodies behind us.  
THR: With all the changes in the independent world, does that make your job harder? A lot of the money for independent film seems to have disappeared.  
Davey: Yes and no. It seems to have been supplemented by tax deals in different places. It is still a business, but it is not as easy as it used to be.  
THR: Who funds Icon? Is it just the two of you?  
Davey: That's a place we have never really gone. I'd rather leave it at that.  
THR: What led to the creation of the deal with Springbok Productions? It seems a bit out of left field for you both, and Icon as a whole.  
Davey: Jennifer Todd came to me shortly after _The Passion_ had finished its circuit in the theaters, and she got right down to brass tacks. Her first words to me were, "Congrats on making the biggest film of the year!" I mean, we did that film for $25 million, and it's already made about 300 times that back. Mel and I never expected that.  
Gibson: (Chuckling) I did. I totally did.  
Davey: So, that was nice. And she stated, "working you and Mel would be an absolute delight. You've made so many lovely and amazing films. You have the likes of _Hamlet_ , _Forever Young_ , _The Man Without a Face_ , _Immortal Beloved_ , _Braveheart_ , _Payback_ , _What Women Want_ and _We Were Soldiers_. We could make something really impressive together, especially if Mel is directing."  
Gibson: They also definitely want to be involved to some extent in our TV projects as well, because, and to quote Jennifer, "Television is an important linchpin of our strategy. You don't have that, you may as well have nothing at all."  
THR: Aside from your recently-announced alliance with Springbok, you don't have a studio deal at the moment. Are there advantages to that?  
Gibson: There are advantages and disadvantages. If you are affiliated with one of the studios, they are the back wall, and they support you. If they are not there, there is no net. But if you manage to make it across to the other side, you'll be all right. Even though we don't have an overall deal with a studio, there is no reason why we can't just partner up with them on a thing or two. The thing with Springbok is that it's not reliant on one studio or another, especially because they themselves don't have a full-scale alliance with a studio, and work their connections every way, to work with as many people as they can. And the fact that Kurt, Charlize and Jennifer all state that they don't plan to butt into the work, running roughshod over the vision we have for any projects we have in mind, definitely helps. Creative differences are something we can do without.  
THR: Do you own your material now?  
Davey: We want to keep as much as we can. We've got about 250 films (in Icon's library). We acquired the foreign rights to Kings Road (Entertainment's) library (including the likes of the famed 1987 romcom _The Big Easy_ ), and we acquired the Majestic (library) rights. But once again, it was not part of a business plan. It was an opportunity that evolved.  
THR: On a day-to-day basis, how do you operate? Mel, do you come into the office every day?  
Gibson: Yes, when I'm around -- not every day but like four days out of five. There's a myriad of things to do. Just answering the phone calls alone is enough to put you under. And I sit a lot with the development guys and writers. I am writing something myself.  
THR: Can you tell us what it is?  
Gibson: Absolutely not.  
THR: Are you organized in your work day?  
Gibson: I am probably the most disorganized person I know. Fortunately, I have a really organized assistant who reminds me of things.  
THR: How do you go about hiring assistants and other staff?  
Gibson: It's (a matter of finding the right person for the right job and keeping) the communication lines open; that is (probably) the most important.  
THR: Do you have role models?  
Gibson: I remember ages ago you'd see a Clint Eastwood film, and you'd see it was a Malpaso production, and you'd find out that was his thing. He's really shaping his own destiny -- he takes the risks.  
THR: Which brings us to the risk you took with _Passion_. How did it come about?  
Gibson: It was something that was rambling about in my (head) for quite a few years, and it came to a certain point where I got somebody to sit down, and we wrote it out. I tried to adhere to the accepted books like the Gospels as much as possible.  
THR: How many years was it from inception to the final film?  
Gibson: About 13 or 14 years. The actual writing process, once I stuck the thing in first gear, was about 18 months.  
THR: To prepare, did you look at some of those religious films such as George Stevens' 1965 offering _The Greatest Story Ever Told_ or Pier Paolo Pasolini's 1966 release _The Gospel According to St. Matthew_?  
Gibson: Yes, I saw those. Some have real merits, and some are real Hollywood, kind of '50s, where everybody was real clean and (had) bad wigs and stilted dialogue; that was part of my decision to do ( _Passion_ ) in dead languages. I just wanted it to be deeper in a way and not have to depend so much on the spoken word.  
THR: Did anybody say, "We'll give you the money for the film, but it has to be in English?"  
Gibson: Yes. But I said, "No. That ruins everything."  
THR: It was turned down by all the studios?  
Gibson: Yes, it was. So I decided I (was) going to go ahead and do it anyway. We embarked, and it was perceived to be a risk. Newmarket was the only group that said they'd be happy to release it without altering the vision I had in mind.  
THR: Is it Mel Gibson's money?  
Gibson: Yes.  
THR: Or is it Bruce Davey and Icon's money, too?  
Davey: Next question.  
THR: Were you surprised by how controversial the film was?  
Gibson: Yes. I was floored. The ferocity of the controversy -- it went on for a year (with) 68 or 70 separate editorials in the _New York Times_ \-- that's better than one a week, none of them nice.  
THR: There are studios that would be crawling all over you for that.  
Gibson: It seems to have become a fashion. But controversy is not necessarily the key to success. Look at what happened to (Martin) Scorsese's (1988) film ( _T_ _he Last Temptation of Christ_ ). It was controversial, and it died.  
THR: What's next? Have you committed to anything?  
Gibson: Nothing. Not at all. Not even regarding the Springbok pact. I don't know what exactly I plan to do to fill out the three-movie deal, other than each film will be different from the last. I have kept very busy -- I directed a couple of ( _Complete Savages_ ), and I'll do another one next week. But otherwise, it's business as usual.  
THR: What about Icon?  
Davey: We're going to do a 15-picture deal, maybe even with Springbok!

* * *

"Interview: Kevin Spacey," by Jeff Otto, IGN, December 13, 2004

_Beyond the Sea_ is no ordinary film for Kevin Spacey. The music and life of Bobby Darin has been a lifelong obsession for him since first discovering his parents' records as a young boy. The project has been a personal film close to his heart for many years, and he has struggled to bring Darin's story to life on the screen as he has always imagined it.

As Spacey's star has risen in Hollywood, along with his clout, _Beyond the Sea_ began to develop from a mere vision to an actual reality. He has pulled together a very impressive cast of film and theatrical veterans as well as relative newcomer Kate Bosworth, who plays Sandra Dee, in what is likely to be the breakout performance of her career. The supporting cast includes John Goodman, Bob Hoskins, Brenda Blethyn, Greta Scacchi and Caroline Aaron. Spacey himself had his hand in nearly every aspect of the production of _Beyond the Sea_ , serving as writer, director, producer and even singing on the soundtrack. Spacey's voice is actually quite impressive. It may not be quite to the scope of Darin's vocal range, but comes very close and suits the film nicely.

IGN FilmForce recently spoke with Spacey in Los Angeles. He was excited to finally have his vision realized and ready for release on December 17. After the press tour to promote the film, he's even heading out on a musical tour to perform the music of Darin. "It's me singing Bobby and talking about Bobby and talking a little bit about the movie," Spacey glows. "But I will be dressed as Bobby. I'm pulling out some of the costumes from the movie. We start in San Francisco, we play L.A., we play New York, Boston, Chicago, Miami, Atlantic City and we end in the Wayne Newton Theatre at the Stardust Hotel in Las Vegas!"

Wearing multiple hats in the production of _Beyond the Sea_ required quick changes from actor to director on set. "It's just part of my character, I'm able to compartmentalize very well and do that, (snaps fingers) and I'm out of it, in it. But it was also interesting, in fact there were a couple of actors that at one point in shooting… I remember Greta, when we were shooting a scene like the first or second night, and it was freezing cold and we were outside in Berlin, [thinking] what were we doing… We did a take, and Greta said, 'I'm sorry, I'm sorry,' and I said, 'What?' She goes, 'I just became very self-conscious. I suddenly realized that you were the director. And I said, 'And?' And she said, 'I suddenly saw you looking at me as the director and not me as Bobby.' And I said, 'Greta, Bobby is the director.' And she went, 'Oh,' literally, and then just completely relaxed…  
  
"I really loved the experience, but that's also because I wasn't out there alone, I had a production team on this film who stood by me when we lost our financing. We were supposed to start shooting in July, and the money fell out, and I was building sets and I'd cast the movie for the most part, and we didn't start shooting until November. And there were these four and a half, almost five months, where nobody was sure if the movie was happening. I was sure the movie was happening. I never lost faith. This movie was going to happen even if I had to rob a bank. But it was tough because agents were saying, 'This movie's never going to happen.' They're all bulls***ting you. They don't have the money. I've got a studio offer. And this is not just cast but production people. Every single actor and production person stayed with us, and that dedication and that loyalty is what got me out of bed every day, because I didn't want to disappoint those people."

Spacey said that his discovery of Darin's music first came out of his mother's love of Darin. "She thought he was the greatest thing that ever walked the face of the earth, and I grew up in a house where Bobby Darin was playing all the time, as well as Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald and Duke Ellington. My dad had a 78 collection, which I now have, that was pristine, so I grew up listening to big bands, that brassy sound, and by the time I was 15 my mother had thoroughly converted me. Then it was when I was in my early twenties that a couple of books came out about Bobby's life, and I didn't know anything about him. I just knew him as a performer and I might have seen a couple of things of him on television. But by that point he'd passed away. But getting a hold of his story, and learning what he had overcome, and learning how much he'd crammed into a 15 year career…

"Then I heard they were making a movie, or trying to make a movie at Warner Bros., this is now the late '80s. I thought, 'This is the part for me. I'm born to play this part. I've got to play this part!' Unfortunately, they didn't think so. In all fairness, I hadn't done any movies and so I was slugging my way through and trying to get in film and television, I began to work in film and television and every single year, at least three times a year, my manager would call over to Warners and say, 'Hey, what's happening with that Bobby Darin movie? You guys ever going to make it? Kevin really wants to do it.' Well, then in '95 I started to emerge in film, and then fortuitously I did a series of films for Warner Bros.: _L.A. Confidential_ , _Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil_ and _The Negotiator_ were all Warners pictures, so I then began my own relationship with the executives there, in particular Alan Horn, who runs the studio. I just basically begged him for about four years, because studios don't like to give up their titles even if they don't make the movies, and he finally cleared all roadblocks, and the end of '99 I got the rights in 2000. So I've really only had something to do with the movie for the last four years, but I started working on the music in '99, hoping that maybe I'd get the rights."

Casting the role of Sandra Dee was an important and pivotal one. Spacey says that Bosworth came in and stole the role right away. "I was always fascinated over the last couple of years as I was reading all these tabloid articles about me and Sandra Dee being in a big feud, about me wanting to cast Drew Barrymore. Nothing against Miss Barrymore, but I didn't have any intention of casting Drew or anyone else who was very well known. I always knew I wanted a relative unknown to play the role. It wasn't until I met Kate at a dinner, and I never saw her work… My casting director here said, 'You've got to meet Kate Bosworth.' So I went to this dinner, I walked in, and she's a smart girl, and she dressed as the role. So she was sitting across this area of this restaurant, sitting on a bench waiting for me, and I just saw her from across the room, about 20 feet, her blond hair was across (indicates her forehead) and she was wearing a little sweater and a little print dress, and I just went, 'Oh my God.' I literally heard 'Summer Place' in my head. And we sat down and we had this dinner, and she was funny, she was intelligent, she wasn't wrapped up in herself. She's an East Coast girl. I knew in about 15 minutes. And one of the reasons I did know was because even though Kate's quite young she has a very mature face, and I knew on film, on screen, that face could age. I had to get somebody, there a lot of girls who can be young and beautiful and America's sweetheart, but to get where I needed this character to get, to deal with the issues of alcoholism without doing it over the top, to watch how difficult that marriage was, I knew I needed an actress who could get there, and she got there."

When asked what he'd like to hear Bobby Darin say about the film is he'd had the chance to see it, Spacey grins wryly, quickly ready with a response. "Boy you've got balls. Bobby wasn't a guy that looked back, so I'm not sure it's a movie necessarily that he would have been proud of, but it was a way in for me to try to do the movie in an unconventional way and in a way that I thought would be more entertaining by having him direct it, sort of using the movie world. I hope he'd be pleased, he'd probably have a few notes on my singing, but then he should, because he's the master. You know, I've tried to get close to him, but nobody gets that close, not to that man."

Darin always knew that his years were limited and many believe his achievements stem from that knowledge. "It's interesting to me, here's a guy who finds out he's got this condition, he could have chosen an easier life, he pushed himself and did things that were detrimental to himself like smoking. He had a heart condition. I wanted to depict all that, I just thought it was remarkable, not make a big comment out of it. I think to myself, that was what, when he heard that he wasn't going to live to 15, I think that planted a chip on his shoulder on one side, which was a kind of fear that's driven [him], but on the other side there was a bigger chip, which was 'Alright, you're going to test me? Then I'm going to test you.'"

Spacey says that he's not concerned about financial success for _Beyond the Sea_. "It's going to be the biggest film that's ever been released in the history of motion pictures," Spacey laughs. "It's already validated, because I faced the biggest critics I could have ever faced: Steve Blauner, Dodd Darin and Sandra Dee. After that, everything's icing on the cake. I made the movie because I wanted to make the movie, and I made the movie I wanted to make. If it's successful, if it brings me success, if it brings all kinds of attention great, because you know why, maybe that will turn the spotlight back onto Bobby Darin, and that's the whole reason I did it. I'm going out on a concert tour because I want to absolutely reach the widest possible audience I can. I made the movie PG-13 so that I could reach the widest possible audience I can, because he's largely been forgotten, and he was, without question, one of the greatest entertainers we ever had, and because he died young, and because he changed, because he didn't always be the Bobby Darin they wanted him to be, I think that had a detrimental effect on his legacy."

* * *

"Sprint and Nextel to Combine in Merger of Equals", BusinessWire, December 15, 2004

_New company will have superior growth profile, unmatched asset mix, strong margins and highly valuable wireless customer base_

_Will have both national wireless and global IP networks; be competitively well positioned to meet growing demand for bundled and integrated communications solutions_

_Unprecedented opportunity to deliver true IP-based wireless multi-media services_

_Sprint’s local telecommunications business expected to be spun off to shareholders of the new company_

OVERLAND PARK, KS., and RESTON, VA. Sprint (NYSE: FON) and Nextel Communications, Inc. (NASDAQ: NXTL) today announced that their boards of directors have unanimously approved a definitive agreement for a merger of equals. The combination will create America’s premier communications company -- a leading wireless carrier augmented by a global IP network that will offer consumer, business and government customers compelling new broadband wireless and integrated communications services. The new company, which will be called Sprint Nextel, also intends to spin off to its shareholders Sprint’s local telecommunications business following the merger.

Sprint and Nextel currently have a combined total equity value of approximately $70 billion and serve more than 35 million wireless subscribers on their networks and 5 million additional subscribers through affiliates and partners. The two companies, along with their affiliates and partners, operate networks that directly cover nearly 262 million people, more of the U.S. population than any other carrier.

The new company will have a balanced mix of consumer, business and government customers, as well as a strong spectrum position. Sprint Nextel will be well positioned in the fastest-growing areas of the telecommunications industry, including mobile data and push-to-talk services, where Sprint and Nextel are innovators in technology. With Sprint’s global Internet network, the new company will be positioned to provide differentiated communications solutions through integrated applications for business and government and new broadband wireless services for consumers.

Sprint Nextel is expected to have the highest average revenue per user (ARPU) in the wireless industry and to be positioned to lead the industry in sustainable revenue growth. Total pro forma revenues for the four quarters ended September 30 for Sprint Nextel were approximately $40 billion, which includes approximately $6 billion in revenues generated by the local telecommunications business.

Sprint and Nextel are being valued equally in the merger and their shareholders will each own approximately 50 percent of the new company after the merger. Existing Sprint shares will remain outstanding and each Nextel common share will be converted into new company shares and a small per share amount of cash, with a total value equal to 1.3 shares of Sprint Nextel common stock. The exact stock/cash allocation will be determined at closing of the merger in order to facilitate the spin-off of the local telecommunications business on a tax-free basis. The aggregate amount of the cash payment will not exceed $2.8 billion. If the stock/cash allocation was calculated today, it is estimated that Nextel shareholders would receive about 1.28 Sprint Nextel shares and about $0.50 in cash for each Nextel share.

A highly experienced management team will lead the new company. Gary D. Forsee, currently chairman and chief executive officer of Sprint, will become president and chief executive officer of Sprint Nextel. Timothy M. Donahue, currently president and chief executive officer of Nextel, will become chairman of the new company. Together they have a proven track record of leadership and nearly six decades of industry experience. Len Lauer, currently president and chief operating officer of Sprint, will serve as chief operating officer of the new company, and Paul Saleh, currently Nextel’s executive vice president and chief financial officer, will serve as chief financial officer of Sprint Nextel. Tom Kelly, executive vice president and chief operating officer at Nextel, will become the new company’s chief strategy officer. Barry J. West, Nextel’s executive vice president and chief technology officer, will serve as its chief technology officer. Leading the transition teams and serving as co-chief transition officers will be Steve Nielsen, senior vice president – finance at Sprint, and Richard Orchard, Nextel’s senior vice president and chief service officer.

The Sprint Nextel Board will consist of 12 directors, six from each company, including two co-lead independent directors, one from Sprint and one from Nextel.

Sprint Nextel will have its executive headquarters in Reston, VA., and its operational headquarters in Overland Park, KS. The new company’s common stock will be listed on the New York Stock Exchange. The merger is expected to close in the second half of 2005 and is subject to shareholder and regulatory approvals, as well as other customary closing conditions _._

“This merger positions Sprint Nextel for greater success than either company could have achieved alone,” said Gary Forsee. “The combination of Sprint and Nextel builds strength on strength. It will be a dynamic next-generation communications company, the provider of choice for businesses, government and consumers, and the only U.S. primarily wireless investment opportunity. Nextel is recognized as a leader in profitability, customer loyalty, revenue per customer, push to talk and marketing to businesses and government. Sprint excels in the consumer business and in providing advanced wireless data services and global IP voice and data networks. Together, we will be positioned to provide the high-value, integrated communications solutions customers increasingly demand.”

“We are confident that Sprint Nextel will generate efficiencies that will benefit customers, shareholders and employees. The new company will capitalize on its leadership position in key growth areas, unmatched asset mix, clear technology migration path, brand strength, innovative products and services and talented employees,” said Tim Donahue. “We share compatible cultures built on traditions of innovation and competitiveness. We will have the resources to develop and deploy compelling, differentiated services by unleashing the combined strengths of the two companies, each of which is recognized as a product and network innovator. This is a pro-competitive combination that will provide customer choice and create exciting new opportunities for all of our constituencies.”

Overview of Synergies

The combined Sprint Nextel is expected to deliver operating cost and capital investment synergies with an estimated net present value of more than $12 billion. These synergies will be derived primarily from:

  * Saving network operating expenses by reducing the number of cell sites and switches.
  * Reducing overall capital expenditures by extending the advantages of Sprint’s current deployment of next-generation EV-DO technology to the combined customer base, including migration of Nextel’s push to talk services to CDMA.
  * Migrating Nextel backhaul and other telecommunications traffic to Sprint’s long haul infrastructure.
  * Optimizing customer care, billing and IT costs by consolidating operations, infrastructure support costs and overhead while maintaining high quality services.
  * Reducing combined sales and marketing costs.
  * Lowering overall general and administrative costs.
  * Reducing network capital expense after the merger by building a true IP-based multimedia network.



In addition to scale efficiencies, customers and shareholders are expected to benefit from revenue synergies derived from extending the scope of existing and future services to a larger customer base.

Robust Network Capabilities

Sprint Nextel will have a clear technology migration path and valuable and extensive network and spectrum assets. The new company will have robust wireless network capabilities, including Nextel’s current nationwide 800MHz/iDEN network, Sprint’s national 1.9GHz/CDMA network and Sprint’s nationwide deployment of wireless EV-DO. Sprint Nextel’s plans include migrating over time Nextel services, including push to talk service, to Sprint’s CDMA EV-DO network. Sprint Nextel will have the capability to deploy new services on the two companies’ 2.5GHz combined spectrum holdings that together cover 85 percent of the households in the top 100 markets. Sprint Nextel will also utilize Sprint’s nationwide fiber optic wireline network which extends to 60 metropolitan networks and 37 international fiber points of presence. These combined capabilities are expected to make Sprint Nextel a key partner for the largest content providers, systems integrators, mobile virtual network operators and other new telecommunications entrants to jointly offer the full portfolio of consumer services – voice, data, video, wireline, and wireless – and customized enterprise applications and integrated solutions for business.

Customer Benefits

Sprint Nextel’s anticipated deployment of new innovative products will provide additional choices for customers and enable the company to vigorously compete in the marketplace.

For customers, this combination will allow Sprint Nextel to:

  * Offer digital wireless service in all 50 states, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Sprint Nextel and its affiliates and partners cover a total domestic population of 262 million.
  * Provide consumers more choice through investments in wireless multi-media, web browsing, messaging, gaming and music on the go.
  * Provide robust integrated wireless and IP-based wireline solutions to business.
  * Improve customer service and sales performance through joint capabilities.
  * Invest to deploy next-generation wireless data services, bringing new and compelling products to market to benefit consumers and businesses.
  * Cost effectively invest to improve wireless network quality and coverage.



Affiliates and Partners

Through its relationship with independent PCS affiliates, Sprint has expanded its wireless footprint into certain areas of the United States. These Sprint affiliates currently serve more than 3 million subscribers. Sprint expects to engage in discussions with the PCS affiliates regarding those relationships in light of the combination with Nextel in order to achieve a mutually beneficial outcome.

The merger may also trigger certain share purchase rights in Nextel’s agreement with Nextel Partners Inc., a provider of digital wireless communications services under the Nextel brand name in mid-sized and tertiary U.S. metropolitan areas. Nextel owns about 32 percent of Nextel Partners outstanding stock. The agreement specifies a process that defines the timing for the exercise of those rights by Nextel Partners and for determining a price, which is predicated on fair market value at the time the purchase right triggers, under which Nextel would purchase the Nextel Partners shares it does not own. Sprint Nextel will analyze this at the appropriate time in the context of the merger process. In certain circumstances, the process for determining the purchase price under which Nextel would acquire the Nextel Partners shares would extend for a substantial period of time after completion of the merger.

Spin-Off of Local Telecommunications: A Stronger Future

Following the close of the merger, Sprint Nextel intends to separate Sprint’s local telecommunications business, including consumer, business and wholesale operations from its other businesses and then spin this separated company off to the Sprint Nextel shareholders in a transaction that is expected to be tax free. The inclusion of Sprint’s North Supply business in the spin-off will be determined at a later date.

The local telecommunications business will have its own management team and board of directors, consisting of an equal number of designees from Sprint and Nextel. The local telecommunications business, which has 7.7 million local access lines in 18 states and had revenues of more than $6 billion over the past four quarters, will be the largest independent local telephone company in the United States. It will have commercial operating relationships with Sprint Nextel for mobile and long-distance network services and will receive certain transitional services, including corporate support functions. Its corporate headquarters will be in Kansas City. Completion of the spin-off is subject to certain conditions, including regulatory approvals. Following the spin-off, its common stock is expected to be listed on the New York Stock Exchange.

“Sprint’s local telephone operation has a long history of strong financial performance,” Forsee said. “It operates in some of the fastest growing areas in the United States, and has been an innovative leader in the development and sale of bundled service offerings. With its strong management team and employee base, it is well positioned to meet the needs of its customers.”

Sprint expects to continue to pay dividends at current levels through the closing of the merger. The spun off local telecommunications business is expected to pay quarterly dividends consistent with its financial prospects. Following the completion of the merger and until completion of the spin-off, it is contemplated that Sprint Nextel will pay a reduced quarterly dividend to shareholders in amounts consistent with the dividends that the spun-off local telecommunications business expects to pay. Following completion of the spin-off, it is anticipated that Sprint Nextel will cease paying dividends.

About Sprint

Sprint is a global integrated communications provider serving more than 26 million customers in over 100 countries. With more than $26 billion in annual revenues in 2003, Sprint is widely recognized for developing, engineering and deploying state-of-the-art network technologies, including the United States’ first nationwide all-digital, fiber-optic network and an award-winning Tier 1 Internet backbone. Sprint provides local communications services in 39 states and the District of Columbia and operates the largest 100-percent digital, nationwide PCS wireless network in the United States.

About Nextel

Nextel, a FORTUNE 200 company based in Reston, VA., is a leading provider of fully integrated wireless communications services and has built the largest guaranteed all-digital wireless network in the country covering thousands of communities across the United States. Today 95 percent of FORTUNE 500 companies are Nextel customers. Nextel and Nextel Partners Inc. currently serve 297 of the top 300 U.S. markets where approximately 259 million people live or work.

* * *

"Bryan Singer Accused Of Rape," _The Hollywood Reporter_ , January 13, 2005

Director Bryan Singer, best known for films like _The Usual Suspects, Apt Pupil_ and the _X-Men_ franchise, as well as executive producing the new Fox TV series _House M.D._ , was accused by actor Brad Renfro of having sexually assaulted him when on the set of _Apt Pupil_ back in 1997. Renfro came out with the allegation after a failed suicide attempt, where he'd left a note that said "F--- you, Bryan." Many people wondered who the note was referring to, until the actor specifically identified the director.

Singer, an openly gay director, who is also known for having notable parties alongside action movie director Roland Emmerich, also gay, at Emmerich's house every year, has come out and slammed the allegations against him. "Brad Renfro has long been known as a deeply troubled young man, whose credit in the industry has plummeted over the years, and he's looking at out at targets to lash out at in order to compensate for his feelings of inadequacy and insecurity. Furthermore, this is a smear campaign because some homophobic journalists clearly got to a very troubled young man and want to take advantage of him. Many people despise me for my sexuality, and this is just an extension of that."

These allegations come as pre-production on the third _X-Men_ film is set to begin. It remains to be seen what will happen as a result.

* * *

"Singer Allegations Unfold Into Rape Network," _The Hollywood Reporter_ , January 16, 2005

More and more young men have come out swinging with allegations against director Bryan Singer, adding to the initial charges brought forth by actor Brad Renfro. However, the men have also stated that Singer and his alleged violations are part of a network of pedophiles using the cover of a gay pornography entertainment company to entice them before assaulting them. The company in question, DEN Entertainment, has been known for making Internet content, particularly a show entitled _Chad's World_ , the set of which many of the allegations stem from.

Chief among the complaints are that a young man named Michael Egan, who says that he was brutalized and sodomized by the creative heads of DEN Entertainment. Furthermore, the DEN heads frequently had parties that Singer joined in on, as well as Garth Ancier, programming head for The WB; Lou Pearlman, manager of boy bands like The Backstreet Boys and N*SYNC; and Gary Goddard, head of Universal Creative, the creation/engineering firm employed by Universal Studios to design attractions for their theme parks.

All the accused vehemently deny the allegations against them, referring to the accusers as "poisonous vipers looking to scalp someone in order to attract fame and glory for themselves." However, the attorney for all the accused, Gloria Allred, states in return, "this is the act of desperate and guilty individuals. We look forward to having our day in court."

* * *

"Fox Cuts Ties With Bryan Singer," by Anne Thompson, _Variety_ , January 27, 2005

20th Century Fox announced that it is severing its long-term relationship with director Bryan Singer and his company, Bad Hat Harry Productions. Singer had a multi-year deal with Fox to release films and television shows, through which he released the likes of _The Usual Suspects, Apt Pupil, X-Men, X2_ and _House M.D._

"After much consideration, it has been judged in everyone's best interest for us to part ways," the statement from Fox reads. "We are sorry to have to say goodbye to Bryan Singer, and the amazing work that we have done together over the years, but we shall remain proud of that work."

In addition, there are serious rumors that Singer is being asked to step aside from Bad Hat Harry or sell it off in order to save it. The Donners' Company, the production shingle of director Richard Donner and his wife, producer Lauren Shuler Donner as well as Bad Hat Harry's co-producer on the _X-Men_ films, and Springbok Productions are said to be offering serious entreaties to purchase the assets. There may also be a compromise deal in which The Donners' Company gets the film assets while Springbok gets the rights to the television division and _House M.D._ But as of this moment, there is no confirmation of any of this, or that Singer would step away or sell the company. Fox is also seriously considering removing Bad Hat Harry and Singer from the credits of _House M.D._ in reruns of the debut season.

* * *

"SBC To Acquire AT&T", BusinessWire, January 31, 2005

_Creates Premier, Global Provider for New Era of Communications_  


  * _$16 billion transaction brings together industry leaders with highly complementary strengths and customer bases_
  * _Combines AT &T's national and global IP-based networks and expertise with  
SBC's strong local exchange, broadband and wireless assets_
  * _New company to accelerate customer transition to advanced IP solutions and services_
  * _Significant synergies expected to make transaction cash flow positive in 2007 and generate earnings per share growth in 2008_



SAN ANTONIO, TX and BEDMINSTER, NJ — SBC Communications Inc. (NYSE:SBC) and AT&T (NYSE:T) announced today an agreement for SBC to acquire AT&T, a combination that creates the nation's premier communications company with unmatched global reach.

The transaction combines AT&T's global systems capabilities, business and government customers, and fast-growing Internet protocol (IP)-based business with SBC's extraordinary local exchange, broadband and wireless solutions. Both companies have common values focused on customer service, innovation and reliability.

The combined company will have robust, high-quality network assets, both in the United States and around the globe, and complementary expertise and capabilities. It will have the resources and skill sets to innovate and more quickly deliver to customers the next generation of advanced, integrated IP-based wireline and wireless communications services.

For SBC, the combination provides immediate global leadership in the enterprise segment where corporations and governments require complex communication solutions and services and access to advanced national and global networks.

Under terms of the agreement, approved by the boards of directors of both companies, shareholders of AT&T will receive total consideration currently valued at $19.71 per share, or approximately $16 billion.

AT&T shareholders will receive 0.77942 shares of SBC common stock for each common share of AT&T. Based on SBC's closing stock price on Jan. 28, 2005, this exchange ratio equals $18.41 per share. In addition, at the time of closing, AT&T will pay its shareholders a special dividend of $1.30 per share. The stock consideration in the transaction is expected to be tax-free to AT&T shareholders.

The acquisition, which is subject to approval by AT&T's shareholders and regulatory authorities, and other customary closing conditions, is expected to close by the first half of 2006.

"Renew America's leadership in communications technology"

"Today's agreement is a huge step forward in our efforts to build a company that will lead an American communications revolution in the 21st century," said Edward E. Whitacre Jr., SBC chairman and chief executive officer.

"We are combining AT&T's national and global networks and expertise with SBC's strong platforms and skills in local exchange service, wireless and broadband," Whitacre said. "It's a great combination.

"The communications industry is undergoing a profound transformation as it transitions to unified, IP-based networks capable of delivering a host of integrated services," Whitacre said. "To manage this evolution, customers need a partner with the resources to provide new service platforms and product sets, while maintaining world-class reliability and security. This merger creates that company.

"We will have the intellectual and financial resources to spur innovation and propel America's communications industry forward, harnessing IP technology to deliver exciting new services," Whitacre said. "We will renew America's leadership in communications technology, with products and services that set the standard for how businesses and individuals communicate. AT&T's voice over IP platforms and other technological innovations will be leveraged to offer more choices and new services to consumers nationally across any network platform."

"The combination of these two strong, complementary companies will ensure that together we will have all the capabilities necessary to compete successfully in serving a broad range of customers across the country and around the globe," said David W. Dorman, AT&T chairman and chief executive officer. "Together, SBC and AT&T will be a stronger U.S.-based global competitor capable of delivering the advanced network technologies necessary to offer integrated, high-quality and competitively priced communications services to meet the evolving needs of customers worldwide."

Complementary, World-Class Assets

SBC and AT&T have highly complementary world-class assets and industry-leading capabilities.

SBC has broad and transferable strengths in local service, with 52 million access lines and dense local access network capabilities to deliver voice and data services to consumers and businesses of all sizes.

SBC is an industry leader in high-speed broadband, with 5.1 million DSL Internet lines and a local broadband network covering 77 percent of its local customer locations. In addition, SBC has nationwide wireless coverage through its 60 percent ownership of Cingular Wireless, which has 49 million subscribers across the country.

AT&T brings to the combined company the world's most advanced communications network to meet the sophisticated data communication needs of large businesses with multiple locations. AT&T serves virtually every member of the Fortune 1000. Its global network spans more than 50 countries and connects virtually every country and territory around the world. AT&T has 26 advanced Internet Data Centers, 13 in the United States and 13 in other countries worldwide.

Beyond its network capabilities, AT&T has complementary assets that will allow SBC to bring a full range of innovative voice and data services to customers around the world. These include a broad, high-end enterprise customer base, proven sales expertise in complex communications solutions, and an advanced product portfolio including a broad range of IP-based services. In addition, AT&T has the world's premier communications research organization, AT&T Labs, which has more than 5600 patents, issued or pending, worldwide.

Financial Expectations

SBC and AT&T expect the proposed transaction will yield a net present value of more than $15 billion in synergies, net of the cost to achieve them. The synergies ramp quickly with a net annual run rate of $2 billion or greater beginning in 2008.

Almost all of the synergies will come from reduced costs over and above expected cost improvements from the companies' ongoing productivity initiatives. Nearly half of the total net synergies are expected to come from network operations and IT, as facilities and operations are consolidated. Approximately 25 percent are expected to come from the combined business services organizations, as sales and support functions are combined. About 10 to 15 percent of the synergies are expected to come from eliminating duplicate corporate functions. Approximately 10 to 15 percent of expected synergies come from revenues, as the combined company migrates service offerings to new customer segments.

SBC has also taken a conservative approach modeling expected AT&T revenues. AT&T's revenues have declined over recent years as it has transitioned from a voice long distance business to an emphasis on business and data markets, and those declines are expected to continue. At the same time, AT&T's next-generation IP and e-services revenues grew 11 percent in 2004.

SBC expects the acquisition will slow its revenue growth rate in the near term following closing. New revenue opportunities include expanded wireless sales in the enterprise space and taking AT&T's industry-leading portfolio of enterprise IP-based services down market to small business and residential customers.

SBC expects the transaction will be cash flow positive in 2007 and earnings per share positive in 2008 — both growing in the years thereafter. Positive cash flow from the acquired business is expected to provide additional financial flexibility for SBC over the next several years.

AT&T currently has approximately $6 billion in net debt and SBC has $26 billion, excluding debt at Cingular Wireless. SBC expects free cash flow after dividends from the combined companies to provide the flexibility to continue to reduce combined debt levels over the next five years while providing excellent cash returns to stockholders.

Mr. Whitacre will serve as chairman, CEO and a member of the Board of Directors of the new company. Mr. Dorman will serve as president and a member of the Board of Directors. Additionally, two other members of AT&T's Board of Directors will join the SBC Board. The corporate headquarters for the combined company will remain in San Antonio.

With regard to the company name, Whitacre said, "We value the heritage and strength of the AT&T brand, which is one of the most widely recognized and respected names throughout the world, and it will certainly be a part of the new company's future."

About SBC  
SBC Communications Inc., (NYSE:SBC), is a Fortune 50 company whose subsidiaries, operating under the SBC brand, provide a full range of voice, data, networking, e-business, directory publishing and advertising, and related services to businesses, consumers and other telecommunications providers. SBC holds a 60 percent ownership interest in Cingular Wireless, which serves 49.1 million wireless customers. SBC companies provide high-speed DSL Internet access lines to more American consumers than any other provider and are among the nation's leading providers of Internet services. SBC companies also now offer satellite TV service.

About AT&T  
For more than 125 years, AT&T (NYSE 'T') has been known for unparalleled quality and reliability in communications. Backed by the research and development capabilities of AT&T Labs, the company is a global leader in local, long distance, Internet and transaction-based voice and data services.

* * *

**** "Verizon to Acquire MCI for $5.3 Billion in Equity and Cash", BusinessWire, February 14, 2005

_Acquisition Ensures Strength of Internet Backbone Network, Enhances Verizon's  
Ability to Serve Large Business and Government Customers  
\- MCI to Also Pay Special Dividend, for a Total Value of $6.7 Billion -_

NEW YORK, and ASHBURN, VA. - Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE: VZ) and MCI, Inc. (NASDAQ: MCIP) today announced that Verizon has agreed to acquire MCI for $4.8 billion in equity and $488 million in cash.

The transaction adds new strength to the telecommunications services both companies provide. It ensures that consumers and businesses will have a supplier with the financial strength to maintain and improve MCI's Internet backbone network, which is the largest in the world based on company-owned  
points of presence.

The transaction will also mean better service for Enterprise customers by enhancing Verizon's ability to compete for and serve large-business and government customers with a complete range of services, including wireless and the most sophisticated IP (Internet Protocol) based services.

The Boards of Directors of both companies have approved the agreement.

MCI shareowners will receive 0.4062 shares of Verizon common stock for each common share of MCI. This is worth $4.795 billion and equivalent to $14.75 per MCI share, based on Verizon's closing price on Friday, Feb. 11.

MCI shareowners will also receive $1.50 per MCI share in cash, worth $488 million. This consideration is subject to adjustment at closing and may be decreased based on MCI's bankruptcy claims-related experience.

In addition, MCI will pay its shareowners quarterly and special dividends of $4.50 per share, worth $1.463 billion. This includes a 40-cent-per-share quarterly dividend approved by the MCI Board on Friday, Feb 11.

In total, the transaction values MCI shares at $20.75 a share, or $6.746 billion.

Verizon will assume MCI's net debt (total debt less cash on hand), targeted to be approximately $4 billion at closing, and customary closing conditions will apply.

In addition to MCI shareowner approval, the acquisition requires regulatory approvals, which the companies are targeting to obtain in about a year.

'The Right Deal'

"This is the right deal at the right time," said Verizon Chairman and CEO Ivan Seidenberg. "We have been evaluating a transaction with MCI for some time, and now we have the opportunity to reach an agreement at the right price that works for both companies and at a time when MCI is gaining momentum. It is a natural and logical extension of Verizon's strategy to transform our company to serve growth markets and offer broadband technologies.

"This acquisition builds on and accelerates Verizon's growth plan in the Enterprise market, and it facilitates our becoming a major provider in that market sooner and less expensively than if we had continued on a path of organic growth. The acquisition will significantly enhance our customer service and competitive positioning by giving us a global reach, a suite of IP-based and value-added services, and a powerful, broad base of large-business and government customers.

"With the two companies' operational resources and investment capacity, we plan to drive efficiencies, increase cash flow and pursue new revenue opportunities. The company will have a strong balance sheet and the financial flexibility to continue to reward shareowners through investment and growth."

'The Right Partner'

"With our heritage of innovation, global network and world-class Enterprise capabilities, MCI is the right partner for Verizon," said Michael D. Capellas, MCI president and CEO. "Combined with Verizon's financial strength and record of operational excellence, we will accelerate delivery of next-generation services, broaden our product portfolio and better serve our customers."

Key Benefits

Seidenberg and Capellas emphasized that the transaction is part of the continuing evolution of the industry that is driven by customers and technology. They highlighted several key benefits that the companies' complementary assets bring to the market:

For Enterprise customers, the transaction creates a strong competitor that, in most markets, will challenge a larger incumbent. The more-efficient operating structure will drive better value, and Verizon will be able to offer a suite of services that address a full range of customer needs. The transaction also strengthens the long-term viability of MCI's global network, which is a critical component of government communications systems, including those used by the Department of Defense and the Department of Homeland Security.

For consumers and other business customers, the post-transaction company will continue to have sufficient cash flow and capital capacity to sustain its rapid deployment of wireline and wireless broadband networks and services.

Internet users in the United States will have a strong backbone platform for their traffic, and together the two companies can make greater investments in their backbones and offer the highest quality of service. In a multimedia market where technology platforms compete against one another to provide  
services, having strong backbone networks will enhance the post-transaction company's ability to deliver advanced services over owned and managed facilities to benefit consumers and small- and mid-sized businesses.

Internationally, the transaction creates a strong, U.S.-based globally competitive network and services provider, positioned to put an American company in a leadership role in the globalization of telecommunications.

For investors, the combination will enhance the company's competitive positioning and long-term financial flexibility.

Financial Effect

In the first year following closing, the transaction is expected to have an approximate 10-cent-per-share dilutive impact on Verizon's earnings per share, excluding acquisition costs and any amortization of intangible assets that may be created at the time of the acquisition. Verizon expects the transaction to be essentially breakeven in year three, and cash flow will turn positive in year three.

Verizon estimates that the acquisition will yield a net present value of $7.0 billion in incremental revenues and operational savings, including investments in network and systems to achieve these savings. The costs are estimated to be approximately $1.0 billion to $1.5 billion in expense and $2.0 billion in capital during the first three years, as the company will commit appropriate resources to maintain and upgrade the MCI assets.

The company expects a net annual run rate of $1 billion in pre-tax savings in the third full year after closing.

Verizon's $4.8 billion in equity to purchase MCI represents 132.1 million Verizon shares, or approximately 4.5 percent of Verizon's outstanding shares.

The companies will determine operational plans, such as branding strategies and organizational structure, as the transaction moves closer to closing.

About Verizon Communications  
With more than $71 billion in annual revenues, Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE: VZ) is one of the world's leading providers of communications services. Verizon has a diverse work force of more than 210,000 in four business units: Domestic Telecom serves customers based in 29 states with wireline telecommunications services, including broadband, nationwide long-distance and other services. Verizon Wireless owns and operates the nation's most reliable wireless network, serving 43.8 million voice and data customers across the United States. Information Services operates directory publishing businesses and provides electronic commerce services. International includes wireline and wireless operations and investments, primarily in the Americas and Europe.

About MCI, Inc.  
MCI, Inc. (NASDAQ: MCIP) is a leading global communications provider, delivering innovative, cost-effective, advanced communications connectivity to businesses, governments and consumers. With the industry's most expansive global IP backbone, based on the number of company-owned points of presence, and wholly-owned data networks, MCI develops the converged communications products and services that are the foundation for commerce and communications in today's market.

"Springbok Announces Last _Dance_ , Dates For New Productions", Broadway.com, March 29, 2005  
  
It has been made official, after months of rumors. Jim Steinman's _Dance of the Vampires_ will bow out from the Minskoff Theatre this summer. Despite statements to the contrary from Springbok Productions, the musical is going to give its final performance on June 15. The reason for this sudden about face? Walt Disney Theatrical wants to move its production of _The Lion King_ to a bigger space, and the operating staff at the Minskoff made the decision. "Believe us, this is not the outcome that we wanted," Leonard Soloway, head of Springbok's musical theatre division, replied in a statement. "This show has been so beloved, and we were fully committed to entertaining the audiences for quite some time yet. But, with our other productions of the show elsewhere, including plenty of choices right here in the States (a North American tour and various regional productions in the likes of Atlanta, St. Louis, Denver, Houston and Fort Lauderdale), the fans won't be missing out on chances to see it. And we did have quite a healthy run on the Great White Way, so we can be proud of it."  
  
Not that Springbok will be merely twiddling its thumbs after _Vampires_ closes. Springbok's highest forthcoming priority is _Lestat_ , the much-ballyhooed musical adaptation of Anne Rice's popular novels, and the first notable stage musical composed by the legendary partnership of Elton John and Bernie Taupin. It will also reunite much of the talent responsible for Disney's highly successful stage version of _Beauty and the Beast_ , including librettist Linda Woolverton, choreographer Matt West, makeup designer Angelina Avellone, fight director Rick Sordelet, and director Robert Jess Roth. It will also feature sound design by Jonathan Deans, lighting design by Kenneth Posner, costumes by Susan Hilferty, and set design by Derek McLane and Dave McKean. "The production is basically the retelling of Lestat's story, especially the first two books in the series, _Interview with the Vampire_ and _The Vampire Lestat_. It's the story of how a mortal man has to come to terms with immortality, a gift that comes with a terrible price of having to kill to live, and how he comes to develop his moral compass, grapple with the question of whether or not he is evil. Anne's books have always been so powerfully evocative with their imagery and flowing language, and Elton and Bernie's score is incredibly strong, possibly the best work they've done yet." The show will begin a tryout at the Curran Theatre in San Francisco on December 17, with a transfer to the Palace Theatre the following spring.  
  
At the moment, a second reading for the Disney/Springbok transfer of _Tarzan_ will be held on April 2 at the Virgin Megastore in Times Square, of all places, followed by four successive workshop productions; Milwaukee on April 18-20, Calgary on May 5-9, Boston on July 11-14, and Providence on September 23-26. The show will then begin official previews at the Richard Rodgers Theatre, the largest of all Broadway theaters, on March 24, 2006, and will open on May 10. The show will be directed by Bob Crowley, who also is the set designer, choreographed by Meryl Tankard, with lighting by Natasha Katz, a score by Phil Collins, and a book by David Henry Hwang and David Ives. When queried about the production, Soloway had this to say. "I can't give too much away, but I do want people to know that the ending will be quite memorable, and certainly be much closer to Edgar Rice Burroughs' novels in its execution. I think we've got a truly kinetic, fast-paced, exciting rush for the audiences, and it will pay off handsomely."  
  
Springbok is also hard at work on helping Disney transfer _The Little Mermaid_ and _Mary Poppins_ (which premiered to a rave reception in London last September, with Springbok helping tweak the show for American audiences), as well as an English-language version of _The Hunchback of Notre Dame_. Soloway was quite terse and matter of fact about these productions. "We have no official dates set for these shows, because they're still in the process of development. I do know that _The Little Mermaid_ was originally set to come out around this time, but Disney wasn't happy with David Ives' book for that production, so it's back to the drawing board there. I can't speak for David, but I'm sure he's grateful he at least got the chance to be involved with _Tarzan_ as a consolation prize." In addition, Soloway admits that part of the reason that _Hunchback_ is slow to come to the States is because of an unexpected bit of litigation. "Dennis DeYoung of Styx did a version of _Hunchback_ in Nashville back in '97, and he's a little miffed, to say the least, about the Disney version. He's saying that all his investors for a New York run were scared off and that he had a lot of his own money in that, so he's threatening to sue us and Disney for money lost in that venture."  
  
Regardless of how that turns out, Springbok still has plenty of irons in the fire. Buoyed by the success of the recent film version of _The Phantom of the Opera_ , a revamped stage tour, incorporating certain elements of the movie, is officially opening at the Fox Theatre in Atlanta on April 19, and is expected to run for quite some time. Also, a Las Vegas spectacular will be staged at The Venetian starting next June, with "updated technology and effects, and plenty of exciting surprises." Springbok is also at work helping bring Andrew Lloyd Webber's latest musical, _The Woman in White_ , to Broadway, where it will premiere at the Marquis Theatre this November. Alas, it will have to make do without Michael Crawford, the original actor who portrayed the villainous Count Fosco, as he recently collapsed after a performance from intense dehydration caused by the fat suit he was wearing. Michael Ball has taken his place, and is likely to do so when the show arrives in New York. Springbok has a massive North American tour for _Whistle Down the Wind_ , Lloyd Webber's collaboration with Jim Steinman, starting in Providence at Christmastime. "It will be very much based on the West End production," Soloway asserts. "There is precious little that needs to be changed, regarding staging and effects, though we certainly have helped brush up the book. If this succeeds like we think it can, there's no reason it can't move on to Broadway." And Springbok has entered a handshake deal with Lloyd Webber to help produce a long whispered about and gestating sequel to _Phantom_. "If this production comes about, then we want to help Andrew make it the best it can be, and hopefully temper some of his weaknesses."  
  
This kind of workload would be enough for most organizations. But that's still not the end of Springbok's work in theater. Despite not fully producing it, they have ponied up considerable money in the forthcoming film version of the highly successful stage musical version of Mel Brooks' _The Producers_. The film, which will open this December, reunites the highly successful leading duo of Nathan Lane as Max Bialystock and Matthew Broderick as Leo Bloom, which won the hearts of critics and the public during the show's run at the St. James Theatre. In addition, the film will host the likes of Uma Thurman and Will Ferrell in important roles, and despite rumors that Susan Strohman, the director of the stage version, taking over directing duties for the film, the honors have been split between Alan Parker ( _Angel Heart, Mississippi Burning, Evita_ ) and an unexpected figure...Mel Brooks himself. "The whole thing is Mel's baby, starting when the original movie came out back in '68," Soloway explains. "There is no one better to assist with the job, and to further demonstrate that he still has the comedic chops that made him famous." Springbok is also hard at work producing a US touring production of the show, and plans to work with Brooks on stage transfers (and potential movie versions) of _Young Frankenstein_ and _Blazing Saddles_.  
  
And lastly, Springbok is also expanding with yet more impressive projects, such as a revival of Barry Keating's _Starmites_ , an English version of Michael Kunze's _Elisabeth,_ and planned film versions of _Sweeney Todd_ and _Les Miserables_. When asked how Springbok can possibly manage all these potential ideas at once, Soloway merely shrugs. "Hope and faith go a long way."

* * *

"Acquisition of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Completed," BusinessWire, April 8, 2005   
**  
**Los Angeles- Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. (MGM) announced today that a consortium comprised of Sony Corporation of America, Providence Equity Partners, Texas Pacific Group, Comcast Corporation (NASDAQ: CMCSA, CMCSK) and DLJ Merchant Banking Partners completed its acquisition of the Company. This transaction establishes MGM as one of the world's largest privately held, independent motion picture, television and home video companies.  
  
"Today we begin a new, exciting chapter in the life of MGM," said Dan Taylor, President of MGM. "With our strong financial and strategic partners, we look forward to building on MGM's exceptional legacy and capitalizing on emerging technologies and markets to provide consumers worldwide more opportunities to enjoy the world's largest modern library of films and television programming. We look forward to a very bright future for MGM."  
  
MGM also announced today several key senior management appointments. Charles Cohen will serve as Executive Vice President of the Company. Mr. Cohen had served as Executive Vice President of Finance and Corporate Development at MGM since May 1997. Jim Packer will serve as Executive Vice President of Television Distribution. Mr. Packer had served as Executive Vice President, Television Distribution - North America since 2001. Blake Thomas will serve as Executive Vice President of Home Entertainment Distribution. Mr. Thomas served previously as Executive Vice President of Worldwide Marketing since 2000. Bruce Tuchman has been appointed Executive Vice President of MGM Networks. Mr. Tuchman had served as head of MGM Networks since July 2001. Travis Rutherford has been named Executive Vice President of Consumer Products and Location-Based Entertainment. Mr. Rutherford had served as Senior Vice President of MGM's Consumer Products and Interactive since January 2001.  
  
Going forward, MGM expects to benefit from operating agreements with Sony Pictures Entertainment (SPE) under which SPE will assume certain distribution responsibilities for MGM's library of 4000 films and 10,400 television episodes through SPE's global distribution network, which currently distributes SPE's library of 3500 films and 35,000 television episodes. In addition, MGM expects to co-finance new films with SPE and co-produce some of these new projects. These films will be distributed and marketed by SPE. MGM will continue to develop new original television programs and is currently completing production on the ninth season of _Stargate SG-1_ and the second season of _Stargate Atlantis_ , which will both premiere this summer. Sony Pictures Television will assume production management for certain MGM television content.  
  
In addition to the operating agreements with SPE, MGM also expects to benefit from distribution agreements with Comcast. MGM content will be available on Comcast's video on demand platform and on new cable channels operated by Comcast and jointly owned by Comcast, SPE and the members of the consortium.  
  
Films currently slated for release by MGM will proceed on schedule. The Company expects to release _Into the Blue_ , _Romance and Cigarettes_ , _The Woods_ , _The Pink Panther_ and _Art School Confidential_ in the fall of this year.  
  
MGM and the consortium announced on September 23, 2004 that they had entered into an agreement related to this acquisition. The agreement was adopted by MGM shareholders on December 17, 2004. In accordance with the terms of the agreement, stockholders of MGM will receive $12.00 in cash, without interest, for each MGM share held.  
  
About Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc.  
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. is an independent, privately-held motion picture, television, home video, and theatrical production and distribution company. The company owns the world's largest library of modern films, comprising approximately 4000 titles, and over 10,400 episodes of television programming. Its film library has received 208 Academy Awards, one of the largest award winning collections in the world, and includes numerous successful film franchises, including James Bond, _Pink Panther_ and _Rocky_. MGM is owned by an investor consortium comprised of Sony Corporation of America, Providence Equity Partners, Texas Pacific Group, Comcast Corporation and DLJ Merchant Banking Partners.   
  
About Sony Corporation of America  
Sony Corporation of America, based in New York City, is the U.S. subsidiary of Sony Corporation, headquartered in Tokyo. Sony is a leading manufacturer of audio, video, communications, and information technology products for the consumer and professional markets. Its music, motion picture, television, computer entertainment, and online businesses make Sony one of the most comprehensive entertainment companies in the world. Sony's principal U.S. businesses include Sony Electronics Inc., Sony Pictures Entertainment, Sony Computer Entertainment America Inc., and a 50% interest in Sony BMG Music Entertainment, one of the largest recorded music companies in the world. Sony recorded consolidated annual sales of over $72 billion for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2004, and it employs 162,000 people worldwide. Sony's consolidated sales in the U.S. for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2004 were $20.4 billion. 

About Providence Equity Partners Inc.  
Providence Equity Partners Inc. is one of the world's leading private investment firms specializing in equity investments in media and communications companies. The principals of Providence Equity manage funds with over $9 billion in equity commitments and have invested in more than 80 companies operating in over 20 countries since the firm's inception in 1991. Current and previous areas of investment include cable television content and distribution, wireless and wireline telephony, publishing, radio and television broadcasting and other media and communications sectors. Significant investments include VoiceStream Wireless, Warner Music Group, PanAmSat, AT&T Canada, eircom plc, Casema, Kabel Deutschland, Language Line, F&W Publications, ProSiebenSat.1, Springbok Productions and Bresnan Broadband Holdings. The firm has offices in Providence, New York and London.   
  
About Texas Pacific Group  
Texas Pacific Group is one of the world's leading private investment firms managing over $15 billion in assets. TPG invests across a wide range of industries, and has made significant investments in branded consumer franchises (Burger King, Beringer Wines, Del Monte, Ducati), leading retailers (Petco, J.Crew, Debenhams-UK), media and communications (Eutelsat, Findexa, TIM Hellas, Hotwire, Springbok Productions), healthcare (Oxford Health Plans, Iasis, Quintiles Transnational), technology companies (ON Semiconductor, MEMC, Seagate), and airlines (Continental, America West), among others. The firm is based in Fort Worth, Texas, and has additional offices in San Francisco and London.  
  
About Comcast Corporation  
Comcast Corporation (NASDAQ: CMCSA, CMCSK) is the nation's leading provider of cable, entertainment and communications products and services. With 21.5 million cable customers and 7 million high-speed Internet customers, Comcast is principally involved in the development, management and operation of broadband cable networks and in the delivery of programming content.  
  
The Company's content networks and investments include E! Entertainment Television, Style Network, The Golf Channel, Outdoor Life Network, G4, AZN Television, TV One and four Comcast SportsNets. The Company also has a majority ownership in Comcast-Spectacor, whose major holdings include the Philadelphia Flyers NHL hockey team, the Philadelphia 76ers NBA basketball team and two large multipurpose arenas in Philadelphia.  
  
About DLJ Merchant Banking Partners  
DLJ Merchant Banking Partners is a leading private equity investor that has a 20-year record of investing in leveraged buyouts and related transactions across a broad range of industries. Since 1985, DLJMB has invested more than $9 billion in more than 140 portfolio companies. DLJMB is the largest business within CSFB's Alternative Capital Division ["ACD"], CSFB's dedicated alternative asset platform. ACD is one of the industry's leading alternative asset managers, with more than $38 billion of assets under management, including $21 billion of private equity assets across a diverse family of funds, including leveraged buyout funds, mezzanine funds, real estate funds, venture capital funds, fund of funds and secondary funds, and more than $17 billion of other alternative assets through its hedge fund (both direct and fund of funds), leveraged loan and CDO investment programs.

* * *

"Springbok's $8 Billion Gift," Reuters, May 5, 2005

Springbok Productions has received another massive wave of investments today, totaling $8 billion. This is all because of the company finding new allies with deep pockets who want a piece of the action.

Among those investing in the young successful upstart founded by Kurt Cobain and Charlize Theron are the likes of Elon Musk, the South African-born creator of web finances service X.com (which was later merged with PayPal, and ended up purchased by eBay, making a massive return on his investment), the Web software company Zip2 (later purchased by Compaq), privatized space exploration company SpaceX and electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla; Mortimer Zuckerman, the founder and owner of real estate investment trust Boston Properties as well as owner of the _New York Daily News_ ; Ronald Perelman, the billionaire businessman and investor as well as chairman and CEO of the diversified holding company MacAndrews & Forbes Incorporated; Kirk Kerkorian, the businessman who formerly owned the Las Vegas Hilton, Bally's Las Vegas and the MGM Grand as wells formerly owning the MGM film studio; billionaire investor Mark Cuban, who is the majority owner of the Dallas Mavericks NBA team; Larry Silverstein, founder and CEO of real estate investment trust Silverstein Properties, which owns a 99-year lease on the World Trade Center and is helping spearhead the aggressive rebuilding of the site after 9/11; Vornado Realty Trust, the real estate investment trust focused on New York City and of which Cobain and Theron have been known to have some investment in; and investment bank Allen & Company.

Furthermore, Springbok has also received lucrative relationships and revolving credit lines from KeyBank, Union Bank and and RBC. All together, this adds significant clout and deep funds to the company with which to fund its expansion and various projects. Springbok is also known to reinvest 80 to 90 percent of its profits back into the company to further keep itself flush with capital.

* * *

"Viacom Board Opts to Split Company", CNN Website, June 17, 2005 **  
  
**The board of directors of the global media giant Viacom said Tuesday they have decided to split Viacom into two publicly traded companies -- one of them a "new Viacom" -- through a spin-off to stockholders. As a result of the tax-free transaction, stockholders will hold shares in both companies. One of the new companies will retain the Viacom name and include MTV Networks, BET, Paramount Pictures, Paramount Home Entertainment and Famous Music. The other company, to be called CBS Corporation, will combine the CBS and UPN broadcast networks, Viacom Television Stations Group, Infinity Broadcasting, Viacom Outdoor, the CBS, Paramount and King World television production operations, as well as Showtime, Simon & Schuster and Paramount Parks.  
  
Sumner Redstone, chairman and CEO of Viacom, will act as chairman of both companies. Tom Freston will lead Viacom, while Leslie Moonves will head CBS. Both are company insiders.  
  
In March, Viacom announced it was exploring the idea of splitting the company into two entities. Viacom says it hopes the split will help boost its stock price. Shares of the company have lost about one-third of their value since Viacom bought CBS in May 2000. At the time, shares of Viacom were trading at about $55. Viacom stock closed at about $35 Tuesday. The "spin-off" news came out after the closing bell, so shares did not move during regular trading. Viacom stock moved rose slightly in regular trade.

* * *

"Warner Bros. and Legendary Pictures Pact in 25-Movie Co-Financing and Production Agreement," BusinessWire, June 21, 2005 **  
  
**Burbank, CA – Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary Pictures announced today that they have tentatively completed a multi-year, 25-picture agreement, subject to certain provisions, with Legendary investing $500 million in a variety of films to be jointly produced with and distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures. The announcement was made by Alan Horn, President and COO of Warner Bros.; Jeff Robinov, President of Production, Warner Bros. Pictures; and Thomas Tull, Chairman and CEO of Legendary Pictures. The slate under this agreement will include a variety of films, among them major event releases and pictures of varied genres. In addition to partnering on Warner Bros. Pictures-developed projects, Legendary Pictures will actively develop its own projects as a part of the 25-picture slate.  
  
“We are extremely pleased to be in business with Legendary Pictures,” said Horn and Robinov in a joint statement. “As the process of mounting, marketing and distributing motion pictures remains highly competitive and costly, we welcome the partnership of a skilled, knowledgeable team who can help us manage our risk as we continue to develop and produce top-quality filmed entertainment for the global marketplace. It is a pleasure to be working with Thomas Tull and his group, and we look forward to an exciting and gratifying collaboration.” Agreed Tull, “We are thrilled to be in partnership with Alan Horn, Jeff Robinov and their world-class production, marketing and distribution teams at Warner Bros. Pictures. We look forward to joining our creative and financial resources in this long-term relationship.”  
  
Legendary Pictures investors include ABRY Partners, AIG Direct Investments, Bank of America Capital Investors, Columbia Capital, Falcon Investment Advisors and M/C Venture Partners. The Legendary management team consists, in addition to Tull, of industry veterans Chris Lee, president; Larry Clark, COO and CFO; Scott Mednick, Chief Marketing Officer; and William Fay, President of Physical Production. Thomas Tull, Chairman and CEO of Legendary Pictures, has most recently been president and a director of The Convex Group, a media and entertainment holding company. Tull executed M&A activity, including the acquisitions of content company How Stuff Works and content distribution platforms LidRock and FlexPlay. He developed the company’s relationships and partnerships with motion picture, music and videogame companies. Prior to Convex, Tull was a principal at the Southeast Interactive Technology Funds, the largest venture-capital IT fund in the Southeast.  
  
Chris Lee, Legendary’s President, will manage the relationship with Warner Bros. Pictures’ development teams. He is the former head of production for TriStar Pictures and Columbia Pictures. He has supervised such motion pictures as _Jerry Maguire_ , _Philadelphia_ , _As Good As It Gets_ , _My Best Friend’s Wedding_ , _The Fisher King_ , _The Mask of Zorro_ and _Apt Pupil_. Lee is currently producing _300,_ which is a Warner Bros. Pictures film slated for worldwide release in 2007.  
  
Scott Mednick, Chief Marketing Officer of Legendary Pictures, has been a leader in the entertainment, marketing and technology sectors for the last 25 years. He has been involved in the marketing for more than 170 films, including such varied titles as _Jerry Maguire_ , _Coal Miner’s Daughter_ , _This is Spinal Tap_ , _X-Men_ and _Dirty Dancing_ ; his individual entertainment clients have included Tom Cruise, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Denzel Washington. Additionally, Mednick has created the logos for such Hollywood entities as Sony Pictures, Columbia Pictures and TriStar Pictures.  
  
Larry Clark, COO and CFO of Legendary Pictures, will oversee finances and day-to-day operations, including analyses for use in making Legendary’s greenlight decisions on films. He was most recently CFO for Creative Artists Agency and, prior to that, was Senior Vice President, Corporate Development, for Sony Pictures Entertainment.  
  
William Fay, President of Physical Production for Legendary Pictures, has produced or executive produced such films as _The Patriot_ , _Godzilla_ and _Independence Day_. He also spent six years as president of Centropolis Entertainment, a major motion-picture production entity owned by director Roland Emmerich. Perseus Group LLC, the San Francisco-based investment banking firm, acted as financial advisor to Legendary Pictures for the transaction.

* * *

"News Corp In $580 million Internet buy," BBC News Website, July 19, 2005

News Corporation, the company run by media mogul Rupert Murdoch, has made one of its first major Internet purchases. It has bought Intermix Media, owner of Myspace.com, the fifth most-viewed internet domain in the US and owner of other sites for $580 million (£332.85 million). Mr. Murdoch says the networking site will drive traffic to his Fox TV sites. Last week the company set up a new Internet unit. Mr. Murdoch has said that newspapers have been slow to respond to competition from the Internet.

Advertising advantage 

"With a significant amount of advertising dollars moving from traditional outlets to online, News Corp, like most media companies, is looking to boost its internet assets," Alan Gould, an analyst at Natexis Bleichroeder, told Reuters. The US market for internet advertising is growing at 15% in 2005, according to media buyers Universal McCann. Myspace.com users connect to the site for dating, making friends, professional networking and sharing interests.

Earlier this year, New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer accused Intermix of deceptive business practices, including the use of spyware that delivered pop-up adverts and redirected users to its search engine. Intermix agreed to pay $7.9 million to settle the suit but did not admit wrongdoing.

* * *

"Weinstein Convicted on All Counts," by Sharon Waxman, _The New York Times_ , August 9, 2005

Harvey Weinstein, the former head of Miramax Films, has been convicted on dozens of charges lobbied by the Los Angeles District Attorney's office, including forcible rape, sexual assault, blackmail, sexual harassment, rape by deceit, and indecent exposure.

Throughout the trial, Mr. Weinstein seemed quite smug and assured of victory, especially with the blazing performance of his lawyer, Robert Shapiro, in attacking all of prosecutor David Walgren's witnesses, accusing them of lying, often suggesting that a number of the victims had actually had consensual sex with Mr. Weinstein in order to push their own careers forward, and merely regretted it and changed their stories in order to "assuage guilt." Many of the witnesses held firm in their stories and walked through the fire quite well. This was especially during a videotape of a deposition and cross examination of actress Asia Argento, when reports that she had sexually assaulted a young man named Jimmy Bennett during the making of the film adaptation of _The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things_ , but Ms. Argento did not seem fazed and even kept her composure quite well. 

Mr. Walgren's cross examination of Mr. Bennett was somewhat polarizing, because of his viciousness in his questioning and calling Mr. Bennett a brazen liar who wanted to get even with Ms. Argento. Some people stated that Mr. Shapiro had clearly attempted to create a satellite "trial within a trial," much as Mr. Shapiro, along with Johnnie Cochran and Robert Kardashian, had done during the O.J. Simpson trial a decade prior, with a prolonged focus on the credibility of LAPD Detective Mark Fuhrman and whether he had used racial epithets. Mr. Shapiro was excoriated for his tactics, as well as parroting Mr. Weinstein's claims of years ago that the allegations against him were invented wholesale as part of an organized smear campaign by Steven Spielberg and DreamWorks Pictures in order to torpedo the Oscar campaign of Miramax's _Shakespeare in Love_ and ensure a Best Picture win for _Saving Private Ryan_.

A mob of spectators jeered and booed at Mr. Weinstein as he made his way out of the courthouse to await his sentencing. Weinstein's brother Bob, himself excoriated for his role in the affair, looked ashen and gray, and their elderly mother Miriam, for whom and her late husband Max the company Miramax was named, sobbed uncontrollably. The penalty is expected to be quite stiff, and there are continued reports that the New York District Attorney's Office will charge Mr. Weinstein for further crimes and spark an extradition hearing for those. For now, Mr. Weinstein's conviction represents a startling victory for sexual assault victims and their advocates.

* * *

"Geffen, Spacey, Face the Fire of Allegations," by David Fahrenthold, _The_ _Washington Post_ , September 13, 2005

Entertainment mogul David Geffen and actor Kevin Spacey are just the latest public figures to feel the fire of allegations regarding some degree of sexual misconduct. For Spacey, it's of directly performing sexual misconduct against scores of young men, in a flood of allegations that started when Anthony Rapp, known as being on the original cast of the musical _Rent_ and the forthcoming movie adaptation, accused Spacey of violating him back during the 1980s. For Geffen's part, it's a of a more nefarious nature, saying that he aided and abetted the criminality and misconduct of notable entertainment industry figures, helped essentially put the Hollywood industry under control of a group called "the Gay Mafia", and that he essentially ran and coordinated smear campaigns against those on his enemy list for the slightest infraction. Geffen ended up so accused when the recently convicted Harvey Weinstein announced he would turn informant in order to secure a lighter sentence, and was also so joined by filmmaker Bryan Singer; himself accused earlier this year after actor Brad Renfro attempted suicide and left a note saying, "F--- you, Bryan," then when Renfro recovered, stated that Singer had raped him during the filming of the director's 1998 film _Apt Pupil_. Singer had denounced the allegations against him while suffering the fallout of being fired from the third _X-Men_ film, and his production company, Bad Hat Harry Productions, having its film unit snapped by The Donners' Company (co-producer of the two _X-Men_ films) and the television unit, which had released only one show so far, the new hit _House, M.D._ on Fox, by Springbok Productions. Singer chose to plead guilty and inform after Weinstein had done so. And Weinstein's conviction came after PBS formally terminated the employment of journalist Charlie Rose after an investigation into claims of sexual misconduct.

Geffen surrendered to authorities a few days ago, and Rapp's allegations against Spacey came right afterwards. Both men vehemently deny the charges, with Spacey responding with a bizarre comment, saying, "From this point forward, I choose to live life as a gay man," using this statement as a way to confirm rumors about his sexuality that had been quietly lurking for years, though the manner of how he did so was greeted with howls of derision. This also all came in the middle of Spacey's tenure as artist-manager of the Old Vic Theatre in London, which he's had for a year, after releasing his Bobby Darin biopic and vanity project, _Beyond the Sea_ , which was released to negative reviews and box office failure. The Old Vic terminated Spacey's employment and a film he'd been doing with Morgan Freeman called _Edison_ was officially shelved. Geffen was put on a "leave of absence" from DreamWorks Pictures, the company he'd founded and run alongside Steven Spielberg and Jeffrey Katzenberg.

Geffen had certainly earned many enemies over the years, and was known for being unusually litigious, particularly for his suing Neil Young, when the singer-songwriter was signed to his label, for turning in "uncharacteristic" product for release, which ended badly for Geffen; as well as for his infamously fractious relationship with Don Henley of The Eagles, and Henley choosing to let his solo contract with Geffen expire before recording another solo album in 2000. In 2000, an unauthorized biography of Geffen called _The Operator_ was released, effectively labeling him a liar, a manipulator, and an unethical parasite that basically latched onto unsuspecting hosts and took them for a ride, all the while ironically throwing dirt of claims like that upon rivals like Jon Peters and Peter Guber; forcing their leave from Sony Pictures Entertainment. Geffen went on the warpath, sued the author and publisher and succeeded in having a paperback printing of the book pulled. But aiding and abetting sexual misconduct from the likes of Weinstein, Rose, Singer and the late Donald Trump is beyond unprecedented and far beyond what had ever been said about him by his enemies. Indeed, if there is truth in this claim, then much of the public has thought about the entertainment industry for decades has turned out to be false, and what could emerge afterwards is not entirely clear.

* * *

"Marvel Launches Independently Financed Film Slate With Closing of $525 Million Non-Recourse Credit Facility; Transforming Initiative Provides Marvel Greater Profit Potential and Control Over Film Production and Release Timing", BusinessWire, September 16, 2005  
  
 _Marvel will change its name to Marvel Entertainment, Inc._  
  
NEW YORK-Marvel Enterprises, Inc. (NYSE: MVL) announced today the completion of a $525 million non-recourse debt facility which will finance Marvel's production of up to ten films based on characters from its famous stable of comic book characters, including Captain America, Nick Fury and The Avengers. Paramount, a unit of Viacom, Inc. (NYSE: VIA and VIAB), will distribute the film slate, with the first theatrical release expected for summer 2008. This transforming arrangement gives Marvel complete creative control, the ability to build a film library and greater profit potential than it has received from films licensed to other studios. To reflect this major expansion of its Hollywood presence, Marvel will change its name to "Marvel Entertainment, Inc."  
  
These film production activities, to be carried out by subsidiaries of Marvel Studios, Inc., will complement existing and future film projects licensed to other studios. Marvel has a strong track record of working closely on Marvel character-based films it has licensed to other studios, such as Sony Pictures, 20th Century Fox, New Line Cinema, Universal Studios, and Lions Gate Entertainment. In 2006, Marvel anticipates the release of _Ghost Rider_ , _X-Men III_ and _Punisher II_ through Sony, Fox and Lionsgate, respectively.  
  
The seven-year, $525 million facility was arranged by Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Inc. and consists of $465 million in revolving senior bank debt and $60 million in mezzanine debt. Both S&P and Moody's have given the senior bank debt an investment grade rating. In addition, Ambac Assurance Corporation has insured the senior debt, raising its rating to AAA. MVL Film Finance LLC, a special purpose, bankruptcy-remote subsidiary of Marvel, will be the borrower under the facility. That subsidiary has pledged the theatrical film rights to the ten characters included in the film slate as collateral for the borrowings. The borrowings are non-recourse to Marvel Enterprises, Inc. and its other affiliates.  
  
Avi Arad, Chairman and CEO of Marvel Studios, commented: "The film slate financing enables us to evolve our entertainment operations into film production, an area where we have experienced past success with our partners and which offers significant profit potential for our company. The characters involved are some of the most valuable in the Marvel Universe, and we are excited to launch them as consumer brands via feature film releases under our direction. We look forward to working with Brad Grey and the exceptional team he has put together at Paramount and are confident that this will be a successful venture for us both."  
  
Brad Grey, Chairman and CEO of Paramount Pictures, commented: "Marvel has emerged as one of the strongest, most successful entertainment brands around the globe, with an enviable track record in feature films. We are excited to be working with Marvel on this new business."  
  
"Merrill Lynch is pleased to have worked with Marvel in structuring and arranging this innovative and unique financing," said Michael Blum, head of global structured finance at Merrill Lynch. "Obtaining a vast majority of financing at the AAA rating level backed by the intellectual property value of ten Marvel characters plus the movies created by Avi and his team is at the cutting edge of entertainment structured finance techniques."  
  
Funds under the facility will be used for the production of films. Marvel will receive a gross participation on all revenues from the facility as the producer of each film and will retain all of the film-related merchandising revenues. These merchandising revenues and the gross participation are neither pledged as collateral nor subject to any cash restrictions under the facility. Marvel will also receive all profits, including all revenue streams (including box office receipts, DVD/VHS sales, television, and soundtrack sales) after film costs, distribution fees, marketing, principal repayment, and interest. In addition, Marvel will have the ability to build its own film library through this initiative.  
  
Marvel's distribution agreement with Paramount guarantees distribution for 10 films and encompasses two prime release periods each year - the spring/summer and fall/holiday seasons. Paramount has guaranteed Marvel wide distribution with commensurate advertising and marketing efforts. This is a worldwide arrangement with the exception of Japan, Germany, Australia/New Zealand, Spain and France, which Marvel will sell directly.  
  
The ten Marvel characters in the arrangement are Captain America, The Avengers, Nick Fury, Black Panther, Ant-Man, Cloak & Dagger, Dr. Strange, Hawkeye, Power Pack, and Shang-Chi. Each film is expected to have a budget of up to $165 million dollars and a rating no more restrictive than PG-13. Although the financing allows for the production of animated films, Marvel currently intends to use the financing to make only live-action films.  
  
Marvel will fund initial development including scripts for each production. Once a film is "green lit" (approved for production), the facility will reimburse Marvel for these costs. Marvel Studios will oversee the slate and has sole green light control. Unreimbursed overhead expenses and any unreimbursed development costs represent Marvel's only direct financial risk. The operating results for the film slate will be consolidated with those of Marvel and separate segment disclosure will be provided in Marvel's periodic financial reporting. However, there are restrictions on the cash generated by the films that will prevent Marvel from withdrawing any profits until after the release of the third film, and then only if financial tests are met. As is consistent with Generally Accepted Accounting Principles, the costs of each film will be capitalized until theatrical release.  
  
Relativity Media LLC assisted Marvel with the structuring of the financing.

About Marvel Enterprises  
With a library of over 5000 characters, Marvel Enterprises, Inc. is one of the world's most prominent character-based entertainment companies. Marvel's operations are focused in three areas: licensing and entertainment (Marvel Studios), comic book publishing and toys. Marvel facilitates the creation of entertainment projects, including feature films, DVD/home video, video games and television programming based on its characters and also licenses its characters for use in a wide range of consumer products and services including apparel, collectibles, snack foods and promotions. Marvel's characters and plot lines are created by its publishing segment that continues to expand its leadership position in the U.S. and worldwide, while also serving as an invaluable source of intellectual property.  
  
About Paramount Pictures  
Paramount Pictures is part of the entertainment operations of Viacom, Inc., one of the world's largest entertainment and media companies and a leader in the production, promotion, and distribution of entertainment news, sports and music.

* * *

"Clues to a Hedge Fund's Collapse," by Gretchen Morgenson, Jenny Anderson and Geraldine Fabrikant, _The New York Times_ , September 17, 2005

"If there is a hell I will be there for eternity."

So reads a passage in the six-page "suicide note and confession" written by Daniel E. Marino, chief financial officer of the Bayou Group, a hedge fund firm in Stamford, Connecticut, that was accused by federal prosecutors on September 1 of conducting a $300 million fraud. The note, whose contents were confirmed by two officials who have seen it, answers in sometimes gripping detail the questions that have consumed Bayou's investors since the fund's problems exploded into view one month ago.

Mr. Marino never followed through on his suicide threat, but the letter was recovered by local authorities last month. Of course, his account of years of deceit at Bayou is only one side of the story and some of the details remain unconfirmed, but prosecutors and law enforcement officials appear to be treating his letter as a crucial road map in their investigation. Indeed, the civil suit filed by the United States attorney against Bayou this month closely tracks the letter's details.

Mr. Marino's narrative starts on the last trading day of December 1998, more than three years after Bayou was founded by Samuel Israel III, a scion of a commodity-trading family that is well known to Wall Street. On that final day of a tumultuous year in the markets - three months earlier, another hedge fund known as Long-Term Capital Management had nearly collapsed, causing widespread disruption in the financial world - Mr. Israel called two of his colleagues into a conference room. All three men knew the situation was dire at Bayou - the funds' losses had vastly overwhelmed their gains for more than two years. Something had to be done, and fast. The solution, devised by Mr. Israel and a lieutenant, James Marquez, was simple: produce a fake audit of the funds' performance and try to make up the losses next year. In the end, of course, the plan failed. The losses compounded and the results Bayou reported to its investors - several years of market-beating returns - were consistently false.

So far, Bayou investors hoping to understand what happened to their money have been in the dark about what went on at the fund. But Mr. Marino's letter, along with an examination of Bayou's financial documents and interviews with many of Mr. Israel's friends and former colleagues fill in the missing pieces of the funds' startling collapse.

Because almost everything that Bayou executives told investors over the years now appears to be false, it is perhaps not surprising that people who have known Mr. Israel for years say that the image he projected to his clients was more about what he hoped to be than what he actually was. For example, although he told his investors he was a third-generation trader, coming as he did from a family of successful commodities traders dating back to the 1890s, for much of his career on Wall Street he remained a low-level order taker who bounced from one obscure firm to another. And while Mr. Israel came off as a spirited, affable prankster to outsiders, to close associates he could be demeaning and threatening, even to the point of wielding a gun at Mr. Marino in 2002 when he refused to follow Mr. Israel's orders, according to Mr. Marino's letter.

"What is interesting about this is it was not just a lie, it was a very good and elaborate lie," said John C. Siegesmund III, a Colorado investor who put $250,000 into one of the Bayou Funds in 2003. It is believed that Mr. Israel, 47, remains where he has been since the scandal broke: holed up in the 1920s-era stone mansion in Mount Kisco, New York, that he rents for $32,000 a month from Donald Trump, Jr.. He has not returned numerous calls requesting interviews. His lawyer did not return phone calls. If Mr. Israel is indeed in Mount Kisco, he is not far from the elegant home on the grounds of the Westchester Country Club where he grew up. The house backed onto the third hole of the golf club's so-called south course, according to a friend of many years, who said, "Sammy started out living large." But if Mr. Israel hoped that his foray into hedge fund management would burnish his venerable family's reputation for savvy and successful securities trading, he appears to have failed spectacularly.

In the slick and sometimes swashbuckling world of hedge funds, Mr. Israel and Mr. Marino, 46, were an odd but perfect pair. Mr. Israel, the product of Southern money and Tulane University merriment, boasted of his days among Wall Street's best while charming people as a wisecracker with a passion and edge for the markets. Mr. Marino, an accountant with a severe hearing problem and a lisp, bore neither pedigree nor power. In the mid-1980's, as he pursued his career in accounting, he lived with his mother in Staten Island, drove a leased maroon Maxima and worked for a second-tier accounting firm, according to one person who worked with him.

Mr. Marino has not returned phone calls seeking comment. Andrew B. Bowman, a lawyer in Westport, Connecticut, who represents Mr. Marino, declined to comment about the letter or what took place at the fund. A lawyer for Mr. Marquez, Stan Twardy of Day Berry & Howard, said: "Our communications on this topic are with the U.S. attorney's office only. To ensure the record is accurate, I will confirm that James Marquez has had no involvement in Bayou for years."

But for wealthy investors looking to dabble in the glamorous and promising world of hedge funds, Bayou's top two men offered an ideal balance: a big ego to make money and an accountant to keep it clean.

"If anyone got near anything, I would browbeat them away."

According to Mr. Marino's letter, none of Bayou's lower-level employees knew about the charade that began in 1998. Certainly both Mr. Israel and Mr. Marino knew that if Bayou's investors got wind of the funds' losses they would flee. And any hopes Mr. Israel may have had of adding his name to the list of savvy traders in his family would have been dashed.

Mr. Israel knew only too well how quickly investors could turn on him. In the very early days of Bayou, investors had defected at the first sign of losses. A former hedge fund trader who spoke on the condition that he remain unidentified said that in mid-1996 he invested $150,000 in Bayou. But at the end of the year, he said he asked for his money back because the fund had fallen about 14 percent. Mr. Israel had a tendency not to communicate bad news, this person recalled. "At first I got letters all the time, and the fund was up, and then I got no letters for a while and suddenly, the fund was down," the former investor said. "That was when I took the money out."

The 1998 attempt to recoup trading losses at Bayou was to involve two steps, according to the plan outlined in Mr. Marino's letter. First, Mr. Israel would raise fresh funds from investors and trade his way to outsized gains on that money. In addition, the commissions generated by the Bayou funds' trades - almost always executed by Bayou Securities, the brokerage firm owned by Mr. Israel - would be credited back to the funds to help offset the losses. Because Mr. Israel was known for his rapid-fire trading, the commissions would be high, Mr. Marino's letter said.

But hiding a mountain of past losses from investors also meant that the fund's auditor had to be replaced. A new accounting firm - Richmond-Fairfield - was created to oversee the fake bookkeeping, prosecutors contend. Mr. Marino was the firm's principal. The plan, as described by Mr. Marino, certainly helps explain some of the unusual aspects of the Bayou Funds. For example, Mr. Israel did not charge his investors the traditional hedge fund management fees of 1 percent to 2 percent of assets. Instead he restricted his pay to 20 percent of the funds' gains. In addition, the minimum investment Mr. Israel required of his clients - $250,000 - was much smaller than is typical among hedge funds. Since Mr. Israel needed to attract more money to get out of the hole he was in, lower management fees and smaller minimum investments certainly could not hurt the funds' appeal to new investors. Indeed, some investors who bought into the funds in 2003 said that both were factors in their choice of Mr. Israel as a fund manager.

With the plan in place, Bayou officials reported its 1998 performance to investors: a gain of 17.55 percent. December was an especially good month, fund officials said, showing a profit of 3.14 percent. Other aspects of Mr. Israel's career history and Bayou's operations were changed to enhance appearances or gloss over troubles. For example, while documents given to prospective investors in 2003 said that Mr. Israel started Bayou Funds in 1997, some early investors said the fund opened in 1996. It turned in a poor performance, however, possibly driving Mr. Israel to edit 1996 entirely from the Bayou record books.

Clearly, Mr. Israel's claim to have been a "born trader" was another fiction. According to Emanuel Gerard, for whom he worked briefly in 1990 at Gerard Klauer Mattison, Mr. Israel turned in better performances in down markets than up. Mr. Gerard said he invested a small amount of money in Bayou as a sort of hedge against a market fall, but that he redeemed his investment last year.

As Mr. Israel set out to start Bayou in the mid-1990s, according to two of his former investors and longtime friends, he collaborated with Stanley P. Patrick, a quantitative stock trader, to develop a computerized trading strategy. In 1990, Mr. Patrick had been charged with trading on inside information provided by Eben P. Smith, a broker at Jeffer Management, an investment firm that was defunct by that time. The government asserted that Mr. Smith had received information from a former lawyer at Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom. Mr. Patrick pleaded guilty to the charges and was barred from the securities industry in 1994. After Mr. Israel and Mr. Patrick created the trading strategy, the two men went their separate ways. Mr. Patrick could not be reached for comment.

Another early investor was Martin Payson, the former vice chairman at Time Warner, who recalled in an interview last week that he knew and admired the Israel family. Mr. Payson had been on the board of Tulane University for 13 years and knew Mr. Israel's father. He said that he took the younger Mr. Israel to dinner in Manhattan and liked him. "I don't think we even talked much about the fund," he said. Mr. Payson said that he viewed the fund as an offset to the market. He did not redeem his investment; he said he had no idea there were problems and felt betrayed. Tremont Capital Management, a well-respected funds manager, invested in Bayou around 2000, according to people briefed on the investment, although it redeemed its investments around two years later.

With clients like these, Mr. Israel became better known. Bayou's assets really started to grow in 2001 and 2002 when consulting firms and funds started recommending Bayou to their clients. And in 2002, John Mauldin, president of Millennium Wave Investments, an investment adviser in Arlington, Texas, wrote an admiring profile of Mr. Israel and his trading technique. Another consultant that recommended Bayou to its clients was the Hennessee Group of New York. Investors liked Mr. Israel's constant communications, via email, about the markets and the progress of their investments. He was down to earth, not arrogant. He spoke plainly and didn't seem to fall for Wall Street fads. "As we've written so many times, the new age stocks continue to ascend," Mr. Israel wrote to investors in January 2000, just before the NASDAQ peaked. "It is our job to stand ever at the ready to identify any cracks in the armor and to act when this mania ends."

But one aspect of Mr. Israel's operations did raise some concern among investors: The fact that his brokerage firm, Bayou Securities, executed all the hedge fund's trades put him in a position to profit at the expense of his fund clients. Shrewdly, Bayou's marketing materials tackled the potential for conflicts in the arrangement head-on. Although the goal of the setup was to reduce trading costs, the materials acknowledge that it could lead to higher costs and greater profits for Mr. Israel. By confronting the potential problem directly, Mr. Israel disarmed many critics. And to some investors, any concern about the conflict was more than offset by the fact that the brokerage firm was registered with securities regulators, and subject to routine and surprise examinations.

In any case, the money flowed in and both Mr. Israel and Mr. Marino began living well off the seeming success of the hedge fund. Gone was Mr. Marino's beat-up Maxima and Staten Island address. In October 2003, he bought a six-bedroom colonial-style home in Westport for $2.9 million, paying mostly cash. Soon he was driving a Bentley. That same year, in the midst of divorce proceedings, Mr. Israel moved into the Mount Kisco estate built for H.J. Heinz, the ketchup magnate.

"The end was near."

Although Bayou's falsified returns looked great - market-beating gains of 26 percent in 1999, almost 20 percent in 2000 and 7 percent in 2001 - some of the consultants who had recommended the funds to their clients were becoming wary about aspects of its operations. By 2002, for example, Tremont withdrew its funds after noticing a sizable gap between returns on Bayou's offshore funds and its domestic portfolio, according to several people briefed on the investment. When Tremont asked officials at Bayou about the discrepancy, these people said they were told that Bayou had shifted profitable trades made in its United States funds to the offshore portfolios, in an attempt to increase the offshore funds' performance and attract more assets. Mr. Mauldin said he advised his clients to exit the funds in the summer of 2004. He declined to say why he changed his mind on Mr. Israel. Some consultants, however, including the Hennessee Group, kept their clients in the Bayou Funds until the end.

Mr. Israel and Mr. Marino could not have been pleased to see these redemptions roll in. After all, withdrawals were not part of the plan. The stress associated with the redemptions may be reflected in income statements and other financial documents filed by Bayou Securities. For a brokerage firm to conduct business with clients, securities regulators require that it have a certain amount of capital on hand. In March 2004, Bayou Securities had a net capital position of $5.9 million, and had borrowed 9 percent of that amount, its filings said. By December 2004, however, the firm's net capital had declined to $259,731 and at the end of March it had fallen to $164,237. At that point, Bayou Securities' borrowings represented 161 percent of its capital. The firm showed a loss of $325,912.

Even as Bayou Securities' financial position was teetering, the documents show that it paid for limousine services ($5000 a month), restaurant meals ($4000 a month), the lease of a private jet ($100,000) and even the services of a counterespionage consultant ($20,000). Some of the largest amounts that were withdrawn from Bayou Securities paid for consulting and professional fees. Such payments had typically approached $60,000 a month. But in March they jumped to $431,000; by the end of June 2005, Bayou Securities had paid out $1.1 million in consulting fees.

One investment firm that received a lot of money from Bayou was Eqyty Research and Management, a money management firm in Boston. From July 2003 to March 2005, Eqyty Research received $700,000 from Bayou Securities. Jeffrey D. Fotta, a co-founder of Eqyty Research, said that the payments were for research on stocks. He said that he was unaware of any wrongdoing at Bayou and that as recently as May, his firm was recommending trades to the fund.

Legal fees, understandably, were also rising for Bayou. Over the course of three weeks in June of this year, a lawyer named Jan Morton Heger received $461,000 in payments from Bayou Securities, according to the financial statements. Mr. Heger had not shown up in documents from previous periods. He did not respond to an email message requesting comment and a telephone number for him was out of service.

"I am sorry for the people I hurt."

One of the most compelling mysteries about the Bayou mess is why Mr. Israel decided to close the funds in July, effectively blowing the whistle on himself. Once again, Mr. Marino's letter provides a credible explanation.With so many investors fleeing Bayou, the situation had grown increasingly grave. On December 4, 2004, the fund's board met and adopted a resolution to allow Bayou's president, Mr. Israel, to hold $100 million in his own name to invest. That board consisted of Mr. Israel and his No. 2, Mr. Marino. The move appears to have been the beginnings of a last-ditch effort to recoup years of Bayou's losses.

In March, Mr. Israel entered into an agreement with Lewis Malouf, a managing director of Bayou as well as a principal of Charles Financial, according to court documents, to invest the $100 million in bank instruments that would supposedly yield $7.1 billion over 10 years. The money was given to Karl Johnson, who was going to invest the money for Mr. Malouf. Neither Mr. Malouf nor Mr. Johnson returned calls seeking comment. But Arizona regulators seized the funds in May, suspecting that the money was related to a different fraud; they knew nothing about Bayou or Mr. Israel. Then, Mr. Israel's lawyers, in cooperation with Mr. Johnson, sued to quash the seizure on the basis that Arizona had no right to the money. In the process, Mr. Israel's lawyers provided account documents proving the money was his.

When Arizona kept the money, Mr. Israel and Mr. Marino must have known that the end was near. On July 27, Mr. Israel notified investors that he was closing the Bayou funds to spend more time with his family. Investors would receive their funds in mid-August, he said. They never did. Mr. Israel's communications stopped. According to prosecutors, that $100 million in Arizona is believed to be the last remaining property of Bayou investors.

* * *

"Viacom's Paramount to Buy DreamWorks for $1.6 Billion,” By Geraldine Fabrikant and Sharon Waxman, _The New York Times_ , November 20, 2005  
  
Viacom Inc. closed a deal on Friday to pay $1.6 billion for DreamWorks SKG, the Hollywood studio founded by Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen, according to an executives involved in the negotiations.  
  
Viacom and its studio division, Paramount Pictures, sealed the acquisition at a recent meeting on between Mr. Spielberg, Tom Freston, Viacom's chief executive, and Brad Grey, Paramount's chairman. (Mr. Geffen, who helped to bring the deal together, was supposed to have been at the meeting, but the recent allegations against him and his forthcoming trial made it imprudent for him to attend the finalizing of the deal.) More than half of the money will come from private equity investors, the executives involved in the talks said, and the price includes the assumption of about $400 million in DreamWorks' debt.  
  
DreamWorks had been in advanced talks with General Electric's NBCUniversal, but told Universal on Friday that if it could not meet Viacom's price, DreamWorks would break off negotiations, according to an executive close to those discussions. Shortly thereafter DreamWorks confirmed the purchase by Viacom.  
  
For Paramount, the move is a logical one. Mr. Grey recently took charge of the studio and it still has a relatively thin production slate of 11 films for next year. DreamWorks has nine completed films for release next year, among them _Flags of Our Fathers_ , directed by Clint Eastwood, though one of those includes a film co-financed with Paramount, the musical, _Dreamgirls_.  
  
The Paramount purchase also provides a new home for Mr. Spielberg, one of the most powerful and prolific directors in Hollywood, whose Amblin Entertainment is located on the Universal lot. Mr. Spielberg is not required to make his movies at DreamWorks, but he has generally made DreamWorks a partner on his projects. These included the recent _War of the Worlds_ and the coming _Munich_ , about the hunt to assassinate the Palestinian killers of Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics in 1972. His presence at Paramount would lend the studio his great prestige.  
  
Paramount and Universal recently decided to put the international distribution company, UIP, that they owned jointly, on ice for at least a year. This company also distributed films by DreamWorks and DreamWorks Animation, the animation division recently spun off as a public company. Until each company can build separate international distribution companies, Paramount and Universal have divided up various countries for distribution of DreamWorks films, but the prospect of losing this distribution income made DreamWorks an enticing purchase for either company.  
  
The board of Viacom on Thursday approved the purchase of DreamWorks. Last fall, the board rejected a request by Paramount executives to open negotiations with DreamWorks. The difference this time was that private investors would share the risk of the purchase, said several people close to the company.  
  
The final private equity partners have not yet been determined, said an executive at Paramount, added that several firms were interested. The Quadrangle Group, an investment firm that specializes in media, is a likely contender. Quadrangle declined to comment. The executive close to the talks said that private equity investors would put up $800 million to $1 billion, while Viacom would put up $600 million to $700 million.  
  
This offer trumps a previous bid by NBCUniversal, which had been in serious negotiations with DreamWorks since mid-October. But Universal had been offering far less for DreamWorks, $700 million plus an assumption of an estimated debt of $400 million, according to an executive close to those talks. For months Universal had been the only suitor wooing DreamWorks, which many in Hollywood and on Wall Street considered a logical fit. Universal co-financed movies with DreamWorks and had a lucrative agreement to distribute all of DreamWorks' DVDs and theatrical movies worldwide, which added millions of dollars to Universal's bottom line.

* * *

"Gibson Project on Holocaust Causes Stir" by Scott Collins, _The Los Angeles Times_ , December 11, 2005  
  
Mel Gibson pulled off the seemingly impossible last year, turning _The Passion of the Christ_ , his low-budget biblical film in a dead language, into one of the year’s biggest hits. Now Hollywood’s in a frenzy over his newest project, a proposed ABC miniseries partly based on a little-known Holocaust memoir.  
  
Network executives fielded calls from media organizations hoping to interpret the latest move by the actor-director, who has been criticized in the past for statements he has made about the Holocaust and whose elderly father has described some accounts of the mass murder of European Jews during World War II as “fiction.”  
  
Quinn Taylor, ABC’s senior vice president of movies and miniseries, said Wednesday that he viewed Gibson’s possible involvement as a potential plus in marketing the program, although he added: “We would never buy a project that didn’t have merit solely for the purpose of getting publicity.”  
  
Taylor said he was a little surprised at the intense reaction to the miniseries, because “it’s so early in the process.”  
  
Indeed, network officials haven’t even seen an outline from writer Cynthia Saunders, who’s adapting Flory A. Van Beek’s 1998 memoir _Flory: Survival in the Valley of Death_ , which recounts her experiences as a young Dutch Jew in Holland during World War II.  
  
Taylor said the project, which was bought more than a year ago, wouldn’t reach TV screens until spring 2007 at the earliest -- assuming it’s made at all. The project is one of 40 to 50 that ABC has in development, Taylor said, and the network airs about 10 such “event movies” per year.  
  
At this point, Gibson and his spokesman, Alan Nierob, aren’t talking about the project. It’s unclear how much the star of such films as _Lethal Weapon_ and _What Women Want_ and director of _The Passion of the Christ_ will be involved. Con Artists Productions, the TV division of Gibson’s Icon Productions, is behind the project, along with other producers. Among those circling with interest is Springbok Productions, who inked a splashy three-picture deal with Gibson last fall, and whose first film for the deal, a story set in the ancient Mayan civilization entitled _Apocalypto_ , is also being handled by ABC's parent company, Disney, through their Touchstone Pictures banner in August. "A project like this is something we might very much like to have a crack at," Jennifer Todd states. "Especially since television has long been very important to us as well. And if Icon is bringing such a story like this to life, it could truly be riveting and groundbreaking."  
  
But some of the organizations that did battle with Gibson over allegedly anti-Semitic portrayals in _Passion_ are already warily eyeing the star’s latest move. Rabbi Marvin Hier, dean and founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, said he remained concerned about remarks Gibson made during interviews last year. When asked whether the Holocaust happened, Gibson told one interviewer, “Of course,” but added: “The Second World War killed tens of millions of people. Some of them were Jews in concentration camps.” Hier and some other commentators believe those remarks downplayed and distorted the history of the Holocaust. Still, “we should keep an open mind,” Hier said of the new miniseries. “It may be an education course or eye-opener for his father, who said the Holocaust was mostly exaggerated.”  
  
Meanwhile, the controversy has already been good for Van Beek’s publisher, who’s planning to rush 2500 additional copies into stores next week. James Riordan, publisher of Seven Locks Press, said the book sold just 3,000 copies, delivering perhaps $30,000 in total revenue, since its initial printing in 1998. The Santa Ana-based press, which publishes 23 books a year, is the publishing arm of Chapman University in Orange. The Gibson project may change the book’s future prospects dramatically. Riordan said Wednesday that “we’re going to have to reassess” future plans for the book.  
  
Van Beek said she had been deluged with calls from around the world since news broke of the miniseries. “I have never met Mr. Gibson, I have never seen his movies and I don’t know his father. I just know recently that he is connected with this film,” she said Wednesday in a phone interview from her Orange County home. “A producer called me out of the clear blue sky. He liked my book and wanted to make a movie.”

* * *

"Time Warner's AOL and Google To Expand Strategic Alliance", BusinessWire, December 20, 2005

Creating Global Advertising Partnership 

Google to Invest $1 Billion for a 5% Stake in AOL 

Companies to Collaborate on Online Video Offering and Make More AOL Content Available to Google Users 

Google Talk Instant Messaging Software to Communicate With AIM Users 

MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA., NEW YORK, NY, and DULLES, VA.– Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) and America Online, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Time Warner Inc. (NYSE: TWX), today announced that they are expanding their current strategic alliance. The agreement creates a global online advertising partnership, makes more of AOL’s industry-leading content available to Google users, and includes a $1 billion investment in AOL by Google. This strategic alliance expands on the original relationship between the two companies launched three years ago.

Time Warner Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Dick Parsons said: "We’re very pleased to build significantly on our special relationship with Google in a way that will meaningfully strengthen AOL’s position in the fast-growing online advertising business and help drive more advertisers to its Web properties. This agreement is key to fulfilling our commitment to realize the potential of AOL’s very large online audience. As digital technologies continue to drive industries together, the great value and opportunity inherent in Time Warner’s structure and array of premier businesses becomes increasingly clear. A critical piece of this strategic alliance will be our content, which we will be making more accessible to Google users."

Google Chief Executive Officer Eric Schmidt said: "AOL is one of Google’s longest-standing partners, and we are thrilled to strengthen and expand our relationship. Today’s agreement leverages technologies from both companies to connect Google users worldwide to a wealth of new content. We’ve also created a simple way for AOL Marketplace advertisers to buy and place search-related advertising across the AOL network. This partnership is an important next step for our companies."

Serving Users and Advertisers

Under the strategic alliance, Google and AOL will continue providing search technology to AOL’s network of Internet properties worldwide. The agreement’s broad range of new features for users and advertisers include:

  * Creating an AOL Marketplace through white labeling of Google’s advertising technology – enabling AOL to sell search advertising directly to advertisers on AOL-owned properties;
  * Expanding display advertising throughout the Google network;
  * Making AOL content more accessible to Google Web crawlers;
  * Collaborating in video search and showcasing AOL’s premium video service within Google Video;
  * Enabling Google Talk and AIM instant messaging users to communicate with each other, provided certain conditions are met; and
  * Providing AOL marketing credits for its Internet properties.



AOL and Google have also agreed to extend the term of their existing European relationship, and, subject to mutual agreement, they may extend the AOL Marketplace internationally. In addition, Google, AOL and Time Warner may choose to expand the new partnership to Time Warner’s other advertising opportunities.

Google Investment In AOL  
Google will invest $1 billion for an effective 5% equity stake in America Online, Inc., allowing the company to participate in AOL’s future success. Google will become the only shareholder in AOL other than Time Warner. Time Warner will retain management control and full strategic flexibility over AOL, while Google will have certain customary minority shareholder rights, including those associated with any future sale or public offering of AOL. Additional financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

Don Logan, Chairman of Time Warner’s Media & Communications Group, said: "We look forward to working with Google to extend our successful paid-search partnership to other forms of advertising. In addition, we’re excited about the potential for driving more traffic to our network of Internet properties. This agreement builds on our 2004 acquisition of Advertising.com and our other efforts to make AOL a more attractive advertising partner. We’re confident that this partnership marks the next big step in making AOL an even more important player in online advertising."

Mr. Schmidt continued: "Our investment underscores our recognition of AOL as a valuable strategic asset and our desire both to contribute to and participate in its future success. We look forward to working with Dick Parsons and the management teams at Time Warner and AOL to take our already successful AOL relationship to even greater heights."

Jonathan Miller, AOL’s Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, said: "AOL and Google have a very successful history working together, and this is an opportunity to take it to a new level that will benefit both companies and the customers we serve. We are excited about working with Google on the next generation of AOL products, while further expanding our presence on the Web. This is a great moment for AOL."

About Google Inc.  
Google’s innovative search technologies connect millions of people around the world with information every day. Founded in 1998 by Stanford Ph.D. students Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google today is a top web property in all major global markets. Google’s targeted advertising program provides businesses of all sizes with measurable results, while enhancing the overall web experience for users. Google is headquartered in Silicon Valley with offices throughout the Americas, Europe and Asia. 

About America Online, Inc.  
America Online, Inc. and its subsidiaries operate a leading network of Web brands and the largest Internet access subscription service in the United States. Brands include the AOL service, the AOL.com website, and the AIM, MapQuest, Moviefone, Netscape, CompuServe and ICQ services. America Online offers a range of digital services including the TotalTalk voice service. The company also has operations in Canada and Europe. America Online, Inc. is based in Dulles, Virginia.

About Time Warner Inc.  
Time Warner Inc. is a leading media and entertainment company, whose businesses include interactive services, cable systems, filmed entertainment, television networks and publishing.

* * *

"AT&T, BellSouth to Merge; Combination Will Speed Innovation, Competition and Convergence," BusinessWire, March 5, 2006

_\-- Natural combination of two leading wireline providers and joint owners of Cingular speeds progress in integrated wireless/wireline services_

_\-- Substantial financial benefits for stockholders of both companies; an expected net present value of $18 billion in synergies resulting from a more than $2 billion annual run rate in synergies expected in 2008, growing to $3 billion in 2010_

_\-- Expect merger to be accretive to AT &T adjusted earnings per share in 2008, double-digit adjusted EPS growth in each of next three years (earnings adjusted for merger integration costs and amortization of intangibles) and significant growth in free cash flow after dividends in 2007 and 2008_

_\-- AT &T's board authorizes share repurchase of 400 million shares by end of 2008; buy back of at least $10 billion in shares over next 22 months planned, with the majority in 2007_

_\-- Merger will benefit customers and promote competition_

San Antonio & Atlanta--AT&T Inc. and BellSouth Corp. announced today an agreement to merge the two companies, a combination that will create a more effective and efficient provider in the wireless, broadband, video, voice and data markets.

The merger will streamline the ownership and operations of Cingular Wireless, which is jointly owned by AT&T and BellSouth. The new company will be more innovative, nimble and efficient, providing benefits to customers by combining the Cingular, BellSouth and AT&T networks into a single fully integrated wireless and wireline Internet Protocol network offering a full range of advanced solutions.

As a result, the combined company will be better able to speed the convergence of new and improved services for consumers and businesses, and embrace the industry's shift to Internet Protocol network-based technologies.

'Logical Next Step That Creates Substantial Value'  
"This merger is a logical next step that creates substantial value for customers and stockholders of both AT&T and BellSouth," said AT&T Chairman and CEO Edward E. Whitacre Jr. "It will benefit customers through new services and expanded service capabilities. It will strengthen Cingular through unified ownership and a single brand. And we are confident that this is a merger we can execute, based on our track record with previous integrations and our experience working closely with BellSouth to create and build Cingular Wireless, and operate Yellowpages.com.

"This transaction combines two solid, very well-run companies," Whitacre added. "BellSouth operates in an attractive region with a growing economy. It has great employees and an outstanding network, with fiber optics deeply deployed in its service area. It has a strong record in terms of customer service and a sound, conservative balance sheet. These strengths, added to those of AT&T, will improve our ability to provide innovative services to more customers while returning substantial value to our owners and improving our growth profile."

"Technology changes and convergence are shaping a new competitive dynamic and creating tremendous opportunity," said Duane Ackerman, chairman and CEO of BellSouth. "We're creating a company with much better capabilities to seize these opportunities while maintaining its strong focus on customer service and community involvement.

"This was the right time for this merger," said Ackerman. "This combination is good for our employees, our customers and our stockholders."

AT&T has committed to continue BellSouth's historic levels of charitable contributions and community activities, including the continued funding of charitable activities and economic development and education initiatives throughout BellSouth's nine-state area.

"Our focus is on providing great service and innovative, competitively priced products for consumers and businesses throughout the Southeast, the nation and the world," said Whitacre. "Together, we will lead the way into a new era of converged and bundled communications, video and entertainment services while also improving our ability to manage complex networks."

Customer Benefits  
Consumers seeking a real alternative to cable monopolies should see faster and more economical deployment of next-generation IP television networks and similar services as a result of AT&T's groundbreaking entry into IPTV and the unparalleled research and development work at AT&T Labs, coupled with BellSouth's extensive deployment of fiber networks for DSL and other broadband services.

Business customers in the southeastern United States and the rest of the country stand to benefit from the expertise and innovation of AT&T Labs, as well as the combination of AT&T's state-of-the-art national and international networks and advanced services with BellSouth's local exchange and broadband distribution platforms and expertise.

The combined company will have greater financial, technical, research and development, network and marketing resources to better serve consumers and large-business customers, and will accelerate the introduction of new and improved product and service sets for those customers.

The merger would also give business and government customers, including military and national security agencies, a reliable U.S.-based provider of integrated, secure, high-quality and competitively priced services to meet their needs anywhere in the world.

Since AT&T and BellSouth are not actual competitors in the local, long distance and video markets, and because BellSouth is not a significant competitor with AT&T in the enterprise market, the merger will not reduce competition in any of those markets.

Terms and Conditions  
Under terms of the agreement, approved by the boards of directors of both companies, shareholders of BellSouth will receive 1.325 shares of AT&T common stock for each common share of BellSouth. Based on AT&T's closing stock price on March 3, 2006, this exchange ratio equals $37.09 per BellSouth common share. This represents a 17.9% premium over BellSouth's closing stock price on March 3, 2006, and a total equity consideration currently valued at approximately $67 billion.

The merger, which is subject to approval by shareholders of both companies, as well as regulatory authorities and to other customary closing conditions, is expected to close within approximately 12 months.

Making the Most of Wireless  
One of the most immediate benefits of the transaction will be to streamline and enhance management and operations at Cingular.

"The Cingular partnership and the company itself are performing extremely well, particularly after the AT&T Wireless acquisition," said Whitacre. "But no partnership between two independent companies, no matter how well run, can match the speed, effectiveness, responsiveness and efficiency of a solely owned company."

While the majority of Cingular's operations will remain unchanged, simplifying the ownership structure will lead to more efficient marketing and service provisioning, which will come under a single AT&T brand, generating further financial synergies and customer benefits.

The merger will also allow for closer integration of the company's wireless, wireline, and IP products and services over a single global IP network. This is critical as the industry moves forward with convergence of the "three screens" that many consumers rely on most today -- televisions, computers and wireless devices. It is an area in which AT&T is a leader through its strategic partnerships with Yahoo!(R) and others.

"We are excited about the potential for bringing a robust set of integrated products and services to our customers in a faster and more effective manner under one brand," said Ackerman.

Financial Expectations  
In addition to the numerous customer benefits, AT&T and BellSouth expect the proposed transaction to yield substantial benefits for stockholders of both companies.

The merger combines three companies that currently operate separately and independently: AT&T, BellSouth and Cingular Wireless. AT&T and BellSouth estimate that synergies from the combination will ramp quickly to reach an annual run rate exceeding $2 billion in the second year after closing, and estimate the net present value of expected synergies at nearly $18 billion.

A substantial portion of synergies are expected to come from reduced costs in the operations of unregulated and interstate services, and corporate staff, and the synergies are over and above expected productivity improvements from the companies' ongoing initiatives. Approximately half of the total cost savings are expected to come from network operations and IT, as facilities and operations are consolidated and traffic is moved to a single IP network. Additional savings are expected to come from combining staff functions and from reduced ongoing advertising and branding expenses. Currently, the three companies support three distinct brands with three separate advertising campaigns. Following the merger, they expect to move to a single brand: AT&T.

AT&T expects the transaction to be adjusted earnings-per-share neutral in 2007 and have a positive impact on its adjusted earnings per share thereafter (adjusted earnings per share exclude all merger integration costs and non-cash expenses for amortization of intangibles). AT&T expects that the merger will reinforce the guidance it provided at its Jan. 31, 2006, analyst conference.

\-- There is no change to AT&T's 2006 outlook.

\-- AT&T continues to expect double-digit adjusted EPS growth in each of the next three years with significant growth in free cash flow after dividends. Free cash flow after dividends is expected to exceed $4 billion in 2007 and exceed $6 billion in 2008.

\-- Total revenues, including Cingular, are expected to return to growth in 2007, a year earlier than previous guidance.

\-- Capital expenditures, including Cingular, are expected to be in the mid teens as a percentage of revenues in 2007 and 2008.

\-- The transaction also is expected to improve AT&T's overall growth profile -- driven by wireless, which will represent about one-third of the combined company's expected revenues in 2007, and by expanded opportunities in business markets.

\-- AT&T expects free cash flow after dividends from the combined company to provide the flexibility to continue reducing debt levels over the next five years while providing excellent cash returns to stockholders.

AT&T and BellSouth expect that the combined company will have a strong balance sheet with solid credit metrics. Both companies have single A credit ratings.

Expanded Share Repurchase  
AT&T's board of directors has approved an expanded share repurchase authorization of 400 million shares through 2008, replacing the existing program. Under this authorization, the company expects to buy back at least $10 billion of its common shares over the next 22 months. It expects at least $2 billion in repurchases during 2006, consistent with its previous guidance, and an additional $8 billion in repurchases in 2007. This repurchase authorization is intended to approximate the share premium paid to BellSouth stockholders as part of this merger transaction. The timing and nature of these repurchases will depend on market conditions and applicable securities laws.

New Company Leadership  
Mr. Whitacre will serve as chairman, CEO and a member of the board of directors of the combined company. Mr. Ackerman will serve as chairman and CEO of BellSouth operations for a transition period following the merger. Additionally, three members of BellSouth's board of directors will join the AT&T board.

The corporate headquarters for the combined company will remain in San Antonio. Cingular's headquarters will remain in Atlanta, as will the combined company's Southeast regional telephone company headquarters.

About AT&T  
AT&T Inc. is one of the world's largest telecommunications holding companies and is the largest in the United States. Operating globally under the AT&T brand, AT&T companies are recognized as the leading worldwide providers of IP-based communications services to business and as leading U.S. providers of high-speed DSL Internet, local and long distance voice, and directory publishing and advertising services. AT&T Inc. holds a 60% ownership interest in Cingular Wireless, which is the No. 1 U.S. wireless services provider with more than 54 million wireless customers.

About BellSouth  
BellSouth Corporation is a Fortune 100 communications company headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia. BellSouth has joint control and 40% ownership of Cingular Wireless, the nation's largest wireless voice and data provider with 54.1 million customers. Backed by award-winning customer service, BellSouth offers the most comprehensive and innovative package of voice and data services available in the market. Through BellSouth Answers, residential and small business customers can bundle their local and long distance service with dial-up and high-speed DSL Internet access, satellite television and Cingular Wireless service. For businesses, BellSouth provides secure, reliable local and long distance voice and data networking solutions. BellSouth also offers print and online directory advertising through The Real Yellow Pages and YELLOWPAGES.COM from BellSouth. BellSouth believes that diversity and fostering an inclusive environment are critical in maintaining a competitive advantage in today's global marketplace.

* * *

"America Online Changes Its Name to AOL," BusinessWire, April 3, 2006

AOL today announced that after 15 years it is retiring the name America Online and will now officially be known simply as AOL.

"Our company long ago accomplished the mission implied by our old name … we literally got America online," said Jon Miller, Chairman and CEO of AOL. "Our new corporate identity better reflects our expanded mission – to make everyone's online experience better . Plus, consumers in the U.S. and around the world already know us by our initials."

The legal structure of AOL has also changed, from a corporation to a limited liability company.

About AOL LLC  
AOL LLC and its subsidiaries operate a leading network of Web brands and the largest Internet access subscription service in the United States. Web brands include the AOL.com website, AIM, MapQuest and Netscape. AOL offers a range of digital services in the areas of education, safety and security, communications and music. The company also has operations in Europe and Canada. AOL, which is based in Dulles, Virginia, is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Time Warner Inc. (NYSE: TWX).

* * *

"Disney, McDonald's Renegotiate Strategic Alliance," by Rachel Abramowitz, _Los Angeles Times_ , May 8, 2006

For the past 10 years, Mickey Mouse and Ronald McDonald have been joined together in an exclusive cross-promotional pact that set up Disney's properties to be promoted by Happy Meal toys and also called for McDonald's to set up shop and sell its fare at Disney parks worldwide, including freestanding limited-menu tie-ins in the individual parks of Walt Disney World and Disneyland, two-full service ones in the Florida resort proper (one near the discount All-Star Resorts, another in Downtown Disney), and one at the Disney Village in Disneyland Paris. The deal had McDonald's pay $100 million in royalties and do 11 promotions every year, a deal that Disney values at around $1 billion. The deal has turned out quite well for both parties, especially as Disney has continued its impressive renaissance and turnaround since 1985, seeing the company fully entrenched in all corners of the entertainment industry. So it is natural that both parties would want to keep the gravy, or rather Secret Sauce, train rolling...with a change or two.

Disney and McDonald's renegotiated their strategic alliance so that the exclusivity component, keeping McDonald's only allowed to do promotion for Disney's films, TV shows and video games, has been done away with, allowing the Golden Arches to make promotional deals with competitors like DreamWorks, and in fact they announced a two-year pact with DreamWorks Animation on the same day as announcing that the Disney deal had been renewed "in perpetuity." It also announced a ramping up in having freestanding limited-menu McDonald's branded locations in every single park, including ones yet to be built, carrying on after one was allowed at the recently-opened Disney's America at Walt Disney World; it also announced that during Disney's massive overhaul and retheming of Disney's Hollywood Studios which will be completed in a year and a half, only The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror and the freestanding limited-menu McDonald's vendor Fairfax Fries would be carried over from the original park. There will be freestanding vendors in Disneyland Paris, Disney Studios Paris, Tokyo Disneyland, Tokyo DisneySea, Shanghai Disneyland and Hong Kong Disneyland; as well as any potential further new gates at Walt Disney World, should a potential plan to buy more land to add to the property be approved. However, the second full-service McDonald's at Florida's Downtown Disney will close, and Miami Subs Pizza & Grill will move from its original smaller location into this property, while the original smaller location will be taken over by rival hot sandwich franchise The Earl of Sandwich.

While Disney has certainly continued to reach massive new heights over the years, McDonald's is also continuing to grow exponentially as well, not just with its own menu and franchise, but also its massive investment and stakes of the Donatos Pizza and Chipotle Mexican Grill franchises, the latter of which Kurt Cobain and Charlize Theron recently became equity investors of to complement their investments in Miami Subs, Planet Hollywood, Roadhouse Grill, Bubba Gump Shrimp Company, Barneys New York, Blackstone Restaurant Group (the restaurant properties of NBA superstar Michael Jordan) and Dan Marino's Town Tavern. Disney recently sold large chunks of their stakes in Donatos and Chipotle for massive profit, but still own 51 percent of both franchises. However, their ownership of Boston Market, the rotisserie chicken franchise, has not turned out so well and continues to suffer weak performance, and McDonald's is looking for buyers for it. McDonald's has also continued to flourish in all respects because of following the trends that Cobain and Theron have done with the companies they are invested in and which McDonald's and its competitors have been working eagerly to follow; a push for expansion of the menus to include organic, vegetarian, vegan and gluten-free options galore; elimination of trans fats by switching fried foods to be done in sunflower oil and canola oil; helping push the trend for lab-grown meat substitutes that look and taste convincingly like meat and are also considerably healthier; and mass reform of the livestock and meatpacking industries and the "factory farm" and "fish farming systems" to be done "cruelty-free" and to massively reduce the methane emissions of cows and the carbon emissions of meat plants, so that consumption of regular beef, pork, fish and chicken can be done in an environmentally friendly manner.

Of course, moves like this are not without some criticism, particularly as McDonald's and fast food in general has been targeted for its role in an apparent upswing of obesity in America, alongside lack of healthy options in school cafeteria lunches and easy access to soda vending machines by schoolchildren. Author Eric Schlosser in particular focused his ire at McDonald's and their ilk in his book, _Fast Food Nation_ , putting the blame on them for not just obesity, but also labor violations and foodborne illnesses. Filmmaker Morgan Spurlock did an irreverent documentary, _Super Size Me_ , for which he ate nothing but McDonald's for 30 days, during which he gained 25 pounds and suffered obvious health problems as well. The attention given to the movie made McDonald's remove the Super Size portion option from its menus and a massive focus on improving their salads as well as greater flexibility for Happy Meals, so that children wouldn't only have an entree, fries and soda.

While McDonald's is actively moving to do food and toy tie-ins with Disney's competitors, Disney is not planning to launch promotional deals with McDonald's competitors, seeking instead to find other methods to help promote its product to children. “Fast food has been a very important promotional partner in promoting films to children,” said industry analyst Lowell Singer of Cowen and Co. “As the animated marketplace gets more competition over the next few years, Disney will need to be much more aggressive and creative in reaching children though other promotional outlets.”

* * *

"Landrieu Wins Massively in Mayoral Election," by Gordon Russell, _The Times-Picayune_ , May 21, 2006  
  
It was no surprise to many figures that white liberal Lieutenant Governor Mitch Landrieu would unseat fellow Democratic incumbent C. Ray Nagin in the battle for the office of the mayor of New Orleans, given the massive baggage that Nagin has been carrying over his past four years in office, but especially in the aftermath of the Crescent City being battered by Hurricane Katrina. What no one anticipated was the extent of the margin of victory. Landrieu walked away with 65 percent of the vote, a far wider margin than was anticipated, given how nasty the fighting between the two's campaigns and the efforts of their respective backers had become. But either way, the result is still the same. Landrieu, son of notable Louisiana Democrat Moon Landrieu, who himself served two terms as mayor of New Orleans, is the first white mayor of New Orleans in decades (his own father was the last), and it is also a massive repudiation of a former businessman (Nagin was a regional head of cable giant Cox Communications prior to his election) turned politician who clearly botched New Orleans' response to Katrina, as well as in handling the recovery efforts.  
  
Admittedly, anyone would be stressed and over-burdened having to deal with rebuilding a city that was 80 percent flooded, where many of its citizens ended up displaced to other states, and where vital supplies like food, water and medicine became scarce, leading to a massive uptick in violent crime and looting. But Nagin seemed to fail spectacularly badly in the eyes of even the most patient and understanding people. While he made a now famous outburst on WWL-AM criticizing the lack of mobilization of state and federal authorities, for President Bush and FEMA dragging their feet, he didn't appear to make much of an effort to actually lobby them for assistance, to travel to Washington and give any kind of impassioned pleas in the halls of Congress for them to pay attention and step up to the plate. Nagin also did not set down specific guidelines from his office for how to proceed, for how workers in the city, for the Army Corps of Engineers, and so on, to go about the process of rebuilding after draining the streets. He certainly did plenty of walking around the city, looking at the hellish situations of people sheltering in the Superdome and the Morial Convention Center, but nothing to actually address what was happening. Nagin also made a spectacular gaffe in a town hall meeting in October, where, in response to a question, he said he was certain audience members were asking him "How do I make sure New Orleans is not overrun with Mexican workers?" Though Nagin in subsequent days said New Orleanians should "get comfortable working with people that don't look like you" and praised the work ethic of Hispanic workers, it was an embarrassing blunder, one that certainly made his good will among Hispanic voters erode.  
  
Then of course, on January 16, during a Martin Luther King Jr. Day commemoration, Nagin made what many wag-making pundits have dubbed the "Chocolate City" speech, in which he said "New Orleans... should be a chocolate New Orleans," calling it "what God wants it to be," and scoffing at "what people uptown" had to say about it. The reason this statement came out was because Nagin had been meeting with city businessmen to discuss the most viable method of rebuilding. It turns out that they came to an agreement to focus on city land above sea level, which they dubbed the most economically viable; it also happened to be where the more well-off residents, mostly white, resided. The poorer, largely black, flood-prone areas were to be redlined and turned into green parkways. Many African-American residents complained and took to the streets to protest, calling it an attempt to change the demographics of New Orleans by fiat and disenfranchise their presence electorally and in the population. In an attempt to assuage them, Nagin broke with the plan he himself had approved, blatantly lied and said that he had never considered this a usable plan at all, and gave the speech to assure the protesters that New Orleans would remain a majority black city. However, with his referring to the city as and people as "chocolate" and his coded language against "uptown", meaning white, people complaining, middle- and upper-class white residents, whose vote had been largely responsible for his 2002 electoral win, now were quite aghast the comments singling them out. It also turned out not to be that successful with the black audiences he wanted to win back, as they condemned his comments as pandering and transparent, especially where and when it was given; especially troubling was his claims to know God's will. The fact that the businessmen that had drawn up the plan publicly called him out for his duplicity didn't help matters, either.  
  
Nagin attempted to clarify the remarks by saying that he meant chocolate in terms of "white and black; milk and cocoa mixed together," as well as continuing to double down on his denials about the redlining plan; but it didn't work. And the lack of any clear plan on how to rebuild drew further ire. Then, a lot of Nagin's pre-Katrina term was reexamined, notably his more conservative leanings and support for Republican politicians in the past, the fact that his much-ballyhooed anti-corruption campaigns by pursuing bribery in taxicab licensing did not yield a single conviction; that his focus on modernizing New Orleans by creating a Mayor's Department of Technology was put in the hands of an entrepreneur named Gregory Meffert instead of a respected political head, that the idea of running any government like a business simply did not translate at all; and most notably, charges that Nagin had no right to bawl out the state and federal governments when he refused their assistance in running evacuations out of the city prior to Katrina hitting, or their recommendations of calling for evacuations days earlier than he did.  
  
If all this wasn't bad enough, it turned out in several news reports that Nagin, Meffert, and their families took a vacation to Hawaii back in 2004 had been paid for by Meffert using a contractor's credit card; in fact Nagin had taken multiple vacations at the expense of a company called NetMethods, owned by vendor Mark St. Pierre. This clearly was a conflict of interest with the office of the mayor; likewise a notable crime camera system scheme (already controversial for essentially creating a surveillance state in the city) that Meffert and Nagin had worked together was built with special concern for the bottom line, with St. Pierre getting the contract. In fact, Nagin had even signed an executive order giving Meffert authority to hand out no-bid technology contracts to city vendors he saw fit to choose. Simply put, the anti-corruption figure was exposed as just another member of Louisiana's rogues' gallery after all.  
  
Landrieu and his campaign took particular glee in aiming their sights at Nagin for his shortcomings and his hypocrisy, and even the DNC got in on the action to prop up Landrieu, along with a very public repudiation of Nagin, effectively ostracizing him from the Democratic Party. Landrieu was able to gather a coalition of white, black and Hispanic votes to a particularly crushing defeat. In his victory speech, Landrieu promised to redress Nagin's wrongs and put together a firm plan to rebuild New Orleans and bring it back to full strength, better than before. As for Nagin, it is unclear what he will do with his newly-found free time. There's also the question of whether he will be punished for his vacations at taxpayers' expense, or if he'll skate away like many other state politicians have.

* * *

"Marvel Announces New Independent Deal With Avi Arad", BusinessWire, May 31, 2006  
  
 _\- Michael Helfant and Kevin Feige to Lead Marvel Studios as President/COO and President, Production  
  
\- Arad Will Continue to Produce Spider-Man 3, its Sequels and Marvel's Own Productions of Hulk and Iron Man_  
  
NEW YORK-Marvel Entertainment, Inc. (NYSE: MVL), a global character-based entertainment and licensing company, today announced that the company has entered into a new arrangement with Avi Arad to independently produce films for Marvel under his own production company banner, Avi Arad Productions. In this new capacity, Mr. Arad will remain actively involved in Marvel's upcoming film slate, including Iron Man and Hulk, the first two films anticipated to be financed and produced by Marvel under its new film financing slate. Mr. Arad will also remain attached to produce various licensed productions, including the upcoming _Spider-Man 3_ , scheduled for release next year, and subsequent sequels. Consistent with this restructuring, Mr. Arad is resigning from his corporate positions as Chairman and CEO of Marvel Studios, Chief Creative Officer of Marvel and a Marvel director, but will continue to serve as Creative Advisor for Marvel through the remainder of 2006.  
  
Michael Helfant, President and COO of Marvel Studios, and Kevin Feige, Marvel Studios' President of Production, will lead Marvel Studios and its continuing development of a growing slate of feature films, television and other entertainment projects. Mr. Helfant, an industry veteran with over 17 years of production experience, was recruited to Marvel last year to manage the expanded scope of studio operations; and Mr. Feige, recently appointed President of Production, has worked side by side with Mr. Arad for the past eight years during Marvel's impressive production run.  
  
"I have helped to build Marvel into a very special company, and on the heels of the tremendous success of _X-Men: The Last Stand_ , I felt like it was the right time for me to move away from the day to day corporate responsibilities in order to focus on what I love best - creating and producing. I am leaving behind a great team to run the studio, and I expect to remain actively involved in the development and production of many Marvel films in the years to come," said Mr. Arad.  
  
Mort Handel, Marvel's Chairman of the Board, commented, "Avi has been a driving force at Marvel, and he and his team are credited with producing some of the highest grossing films in history, including this past weekend's blockbuster _X-Men: The Last Stand_ and _Spider-Man_ , _Hulk_ , and _Fantastic Four_. His vision and leadership will be missed, but we understand Avi's desire to pursue a broader array of opportunities and wish him the best of luck. Going forward, we are fortunate to have a deep bench led by Michael Helfant and Kevin Feige who will assume the bulk of Avi's company responsibilities." In addition, Sid Ganis, a Marvel Director, Independent Producer and the President of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, will assist Marvel during the transition.  
  
Michael Helfant, who joined Marvel in November 2005, has over 22 years of entertainment industry experience, most recently as COO of Beacon Pictures, a major independent motion picture production company whose recent feature film releases include _Open Range_ , _Raising Helen_ and _Ladder 49_. Prior to Beacon, Mr. Helfant was Senior Executive Vice President of Dimension Films ( _SPY Kids_ , _Scream_ and _Scary Movie_ franchises, and _The Others_ ), a division of Miramax Films from 1999-2001, and then for a year at Disney's Touchstone Pictures, after Miramax/Dimension Films was folded into it. Mr. Helfant also served as Executive Vice President, Head of Business Operations and Acquisitions at Interscope Communications ( _Runaway Bride_ , _Pitch Black_ , _Mr. Holland's Opus_ and _Jumanji_ ), and Senior Vice President of Sovereign Pictures, Inc ( _Reversal of Fortune_ , _My Left Foot_ , _The Commitments_ and _Cinema Paradiso_ ). Mr. Helfant started his career as an entertainment attorney with Loeb & Loeb in Century City. Mr. Helfant is a graduate of the JD/MBA program at UCLA.  
  
Kevin Feige has over ten years of entertainment experience, including eight years developing feature films and entertainment based on Marvel characters. He joined Marvel Studios in 2000 as Executive Vice President and was recently promoted to President, Production. He has been actively involved in Marvel's feature film projects, serving as Executive Producer on _X-Men: The Last Stand_ , _Spider-Man 2_ , _Hulk_ , _The Punisher_ and _Fantastic Four_ ; Co-Producer on _X2_ and _Daredevil_ and as a production executive on _Spider-Man_. Prior to joining Marvel Studios, Mr. Feige worked for Producer Lauren Shuler Donner and Director Richard Donner at The Donners' Company. While there, he worked on films including _Volcano_ , starring Tommy Lee Jones and the hit romantic comedy _You've Got Mail_ , directed by Nora Ephron and starring Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan. He then transitioned into development which led to an Associate Producer role on the film that revamped the comic book genre, _X-Men_. It was there that he started his work in the Marvel Universe, developing the _X-Men_ feature for two years with Lauren and Director Bryan Singer, and serving as the film's Associate Producer. Mr. Feige graduated from the University of Southern California's School of Cinema-Television.

* * *

"Mel Gibson: The Speed of Scandal," by Allison Hope Weiner, _The New York Times_ , August 1, 2006  
  
Almost as stunning as Mel Gibson’s anti-Jewish tirade when arrested on suspicion of drunk driving in the early hours of last Friday was the speed at which the scandal unfolded, doing serious damage to one of Hollywood’s most valuable careers along the way.  
  
In a little over 24 hours, Mr. Gibson’s arrest and subsequent behavior in Malibu had already prompted talk of a claimed cover-up, an exposé, worldwide news coverage, an apology and then a full-blown push for alcohol rehabilitation, even as his representatives and executives at The Walt Disney Company and Springbok Productions rushed to catch up with the event’s effect on the filmmaker’s movie and television projects with the companies.  
  
On Monday, Hope Hartman, a spokeswoman for Disney’s ABC television network, said the company was dropping its plans to produce a Holocaust-themed miniseries in collaboration with Mr. Gibson. “Given that it’s been nearly two years and we have yet to see the first draft of a script, we have decided to no longer pursue this project with Icon,” Ms. Hartman said, referring to Mr. Gibson’s production company. She did not connect the project’s termination to Mr. Gibson’s remarks. But his statements had already attracted sharp criticism from some who argued that he should be disqualified from moving ahead with the series, despite having apologized for several anti-Jewish statements.  
  
“I don’t think he should be doing a film on the Holocaust,” said Rabbi Marvin Hier, founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, who had previously criticized what he saw as anti-Semitic overtones in Mr. Gibson’s hit, _The Passion of the Christ_. “It would be like asking someone associated with the KKK to do a movie on the African-American experience.”  
  
Heidi Trotta, a spokeswoman for Disney’s studio unit, said the company still expected to release Mr. Gibson’s feature film _Apocalypto_ , a co-production with Springbok, on schedule in early December. Mr. Gibson’s publicist, Alan Nierob, said he believed the movie would be released on time and by Disney, though he acknowledged that Mr. Gibson's role in postproduction work would be interrupted by his planned program of rehabilitation for substance abuse.  
  
As for Springbok, though no comments from the company have been forthcoming so far, many expect that they will drop their planned three-picture partnership with Mr. Gibson. "I don't foresee Springbok continuing with the deal," an unnamed observer reported. "This could easily become a millstone around their neck, a real flashpoint of controversy that they don't need. Not to mention this couldn't have come at a worse time, with Kurt (Cobain) out of the country, touring with Nirvana in Europe and Springbok taking a big role in the (David) Geffen trial."  
  
Meanwhile, those who make a business of managing crisis were already gleaning lessons from the breakneck pace at which the incident had gone from unfortunate encounter to career threat. “The pervasiveness of the Internet has caused a dramatic increase in the dissemination of news,” said Michael S. Sitrick, chairman of Sitrick & Company, who specializes in crisis communications. The message was that there is no such thing as a minor incident among those for whom celebrity is an asset. “I would have reacted very quickly — even if had just been reported in _The Malibu Times_ ,” he said.  
  
In Mr. Gibson’s case, it was not _The Malibu Times_ , but a Time Warner-owned celebrity news Web site, TMZ.com, that set off the media storm. On Friday evening, TMZ posted four pages of a sheriff’s report describing what the arresting officer said was Mr. Gibson’s belligerent behavior and a series of noxious remarks, including several deeply offensive comments about Jews. In an accompanying article, the site said the officer had been told by superiors to withhold the pages containing the anti-Semitic and other inflammatory remarks from the report that would eventually be made public, reserving them for a separate portion that might escape widespread notice. A spokesman for the Los Angeles County sheriff’s department disputed the notion of a cover-up. “The district attorney has the entire case now,” said Steve Whitmore, the spokesman. “We gave them everything we have.”  
  
By late Saturday, however, Mr. Gibson had issued a statement apologizing for his remarks. And the next morning, _The Los Angeles Times_ — in a report that carried no fewer than 11 bylines — reported that a civilian oversight office had already decided to investigate whether Mr. Gibson had been given favorable treatment because of his celebrity status or long-time friendship with the county sheriff, Lee Baca.  
  
“Mel Gibson is an important person in Hollywood, a key player in one of Southern California’s most important industries,” the _Los Angeles Times’_ s editor, Dean Baquet, said in a statement explaining the paper’s mass deployment over the weekend. “Gibson also happens to be someone whose religious views have been the subject of debate since he produced a movie on the subject that is one of the highest-grossing movies of all time. But mainly, it’s a good story.”  
  
A winner in all this was clearly TMZ, a celebrity news site that began operations just last November. “This was huge for us,” said Harvey Levin, the site’s managing editor and something of an expert in celebrity scandal, having created the now-defunct television show _Celebrity Justice_.  
  
For Mr. Gibson, things began their disastrous turn Thursday night, when he spent time drinking and posing for pictures at Moonshadows, an oceanside restaurant and watering hole in Malibu, where he has been a familiar fixture in recent weeks.  
  
When an obviously inebriated Mr. Gibson announced his intention to leave, employees offered to call him a cab or drive him home, according to a person who was involved with events that evening but spoke on condition of anonymity because of the continuing investigation. Mr. Gibson declined the assistance and instead jumped into his Lexus, and was quickly pulled over for speeding on the Pacific Coast Highway and then arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence.  
  
According to the report by the arresting officer, James Mee, Mr. Gibson demanded to know whether the deputy was a Jew, and said he would “get even with me.” In an obscenity-laced tirade, which included “a barrage of anti-Semitic remarks,” as well as a flurry of attacks on Springbok and its founders, Kurt Cobain and Charlize Theron, Mr. Gibson boasted that he “owns Malibu.” At one point, according to the report, the filmmaker tried to break free and had to be handcuffed. The deputy asked that he be met at the station with a video camera, according to the report. Mr. Whitmore, the sheriff’s spokesman, said over the weekend that full details of the incident would ultimately be disclosed.  
  
Mr. Nierob strongly challenged the notion of a cover-up. “This report was leaked within minutes of its happening, and it’s anything but a cover-up, and certainly anything but preferential treatment,” Mr. Nierob said Monday of his client. “He’s been held to a much higher situation. You show me the cover-up.”  
  
Mr. Gibson spent much of the last year shooting _Apocalypto_ , an idiosyncratic film shot in Mexico that used local actors to tell an epic story of warfare among the ancient Mayans. The film was originally set for release in August, but was delayed when heavy rains complicated the shoot. Disney is distributing the movie in the United States, but did not directly finance it. Neither did Springbok, though they agreed to co-produce the project. Rather, Mr. Gibson’s company, Icon Productions, engineered the financial backing, much as it did for _The Passion of the Christ_.

* * *

"Google Pledges $900 Million for MySpace Honors," by Stefanie Olsen, CNET, August 8, 2006

Google has won a highly prized deal with MySpace.com to serve Web search and advertising listings to the nearly 100 million members of the News Corp.-owned social network, besting rival Yahoo in the bid. On Monday, MySpace parent company Fox Interactive Media said it had entered into a pact with Google that spans three years and nine months and gives the search giant exclusive rights to provide Web search results and sponsored links across MySpace. Google also will power search and ads for other Fox Interactive properties including RottenTomatoes.com and Scout.com. FoxSports, which is aligned with Microsoft's MSN, is not part of the deal.

Under the terms of the agreement, which will begin in the fourth quarter, Google must guarantee Fox Interactive minimum payments of $900 million over three years, as long as Fox meets certain traffic and other commitments. The deal is a blow to Yahoo given that MySpace's advertising results have long been served up by Yahoo's search division. The agreement also ends a months-long hunt by MySpace for a new partner, a quest driven by growing demand among its members for Web search.

On an investor conference call Monday, News Corp. President Peter Chernin characterized the deal as the first of many with Google and said that when MySpace members leave the site they typically jump to the search powerhouse. By integrating Google's technology, search will be seamless for MySpace members, he said. Ultimately, in the totality of the deal, Google was the preferred supplier," Chernin said, referring to a highly competitive bid for the business that included Yahoo and all the top-tier search providers.

Google CEO Eric Schmidt said his company was eager for the chance to team up with MySpace because of the social network's trajectory over the last year. In July, MySpace became the No. 1 ranked Web site in the United States based on number of visits, above the numbers of Yahoo Mail, according to research firm Hitwise. "When we looked at what was growing on the Web, all our internal metrics pointed to Fox Interactive," Schmidt said on the conference call announcing what the executives called a quick but complicated deal. "It's important to move Google to where users are, and that is where user-generated content is," Schmidt added.

Quick start for Fox Interactive   
The pact could be lucrative for both companies, but it's especially key for Fox. News Corp. formed Fox Interactive 10 months ago following the $580 million acquisition of MySpace; and since that time, many investors and executives have questioned whether the social network could turn a profit from its thriving free community. Search-related advertising, a business worth as much as $8 billion annually, is a step in that direction. For Google, the deal secures an important source of traffic and ad revenue, giving it added exposure to a thriving young audience of millions on MySpace. Roughly 100 million MySpace members will be accessing Google's search tool from the network. That could also calm any fears the search giant might have had about an expanding and unwieldy force on the Internet--social networks--which could have proved a larger threat to the company without such an agreement.

The amount of traffic Google gets from MySpace has more than doubled from about 4 percent early this year to 10.8 percent last week, said Bill Tancer, general manager of global research at Hitwise. When MySpace overall traffic to Google increased by about 4 percent from the previous weekend, he said. "What I think that tells us is there are synergies between the two sites," Tancer said. MySpace is the biggest Web site in the U.S. in terms of market share of visits, with more than 7 percent of all visits to any Web site in the U.S. last month, according to Hitwise. The terms "MySpace" and "MySpace.com" are the top two search terms typed into search engines, Tancer said.

Traffic magnets   
"When you have a site like MySpace growing at the rate it is, that tells us there is a paradigm shift happening with Internet users. There is a move away from static pages to interacting with (the Web) and posting your own site," he said. "I think it was a smart idea of Google to latch on to the leader in this space." "So much of Google's volume of traffic was being generated by MySpace," said Greg Sterling, founder of Sterling Market Intelligence. "If they were to lose that search volume, that might be a significant chunk of traffic they would cede to someone else."

Google has taken a similar tack before. For example, it agreed to pay $1 billion for a 5 percent stake in AOL. It also agreed to share search ad revenue with Dell in exchange for Dell pre-installing the Google Toolbar for PC and Web search. The Fox deal is ironic, Sterling said, given that Google could have bought MySpace for about half the price that News Corp. paid for it, according to an interview with News Corp. Chief Rupert Murdoch in a recent issue of Wired.

Nevertheless, News Corp.'s Chernin said the deal will pay for the company's investment in MySpace on a 100 percent margin, and that the relationship will have a positive effect on revenue this year. Under terms of the deal, Google will have additional rights to serve search and advertising to Fox properties in the United States and overseas, except for two countries, which Fox executives would not disclose. MySpace executives have said previously that the social network plans to grow internationally, in countries including the United Kingdom.

As far as search, MySpace plans to mesh Google technology and ads with its own features for navigating the Web, member profiles, music, books and so on. Fox executives said that each MySpace member page will contain a Google search box, for example. The company also plans to release a toolbar that will incorporate Google technology. Google ads will appear in the form of sponsored listings in search results and contextually targeted placements on MySpace pages. Google will also have first right of refusal to sell unsold display advertising on MySpace and other Fox properties.

Danny Sullivan, editor of Search Engine Watch, said the deal will be especially fruitful for Google when it comes to targeting ads within social environments. "It's going to give them an incredible look into what's going on in MySpace. Given that MySpace is growing so fast, that's a cheap price to pay," Sullivan said.

News Corp.'s Chernin hinted that targeted advertising to members is the Holy Grail. "The real potential for a home run is combining Google technology with our demographic information," Chernin said.

* * *

_ People  _ Magazine cover story on Mel Gibson, August 14, 2006

To the crowd at Moonshadows bar in Malibu, Mel Gibson seemed a genial sort of drunk, the life of the party who topped off patrons’ drinks, vodka bottle in hand, posed for cell phone pictures and even doled out playful hugs and kisses to fellow patrons. “He wasn’t falling down drunk, but the kind of tipsy where you just want to love everyone,” says one guest who partied with the middle-aged movie star on the night of July 27. “You look really good for a 50-year-old guy,” she recalls someone telling Gibson. “He said, ‘Thanks. I try to take care of myself. I quit smoking last week.’ Then he looked at the bottle of beer he was holding and said, ‘But this I just can’t quit.’ He was smiling when he said it—but it was a sad sort of smile.”  
  
A few hours later, the habit Gibson couldn’t kick kicked him hard. At around 2 AM, says another witness who came with a group of friends, “the five of us and a bouncer were walking out with [Mel]. I kept grabbing for his keys. My coworker offered him a ride. I don’t know what his reaction was to it. Then we left.”  
  
So did Gibson, in his 2006 Lexus. By 2:15 the Oscar-winning actor and director had been pulled over—with a bottle of tequila within reach—going 87 mph in a 45-mph zone on a coastal highway. A belligerent Gibson (whose blood-alcohol level was found to be .12, 50 percent over the legal limit) threatened L.A. County sheriff’s deputy James Mee, and launched into a bizarre tirade. “F—— Jews,” Gibson told Mee, who is Jewish. “The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world. Are you a Jew?” He then added snide comments about Springbok Productions, the production company founded by Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain and his wife, actress Charlize Theron, with whom he'd recently entered a three-picture deal. "These f---ing rock stars, everybody listens to them, so they get to break down the social order. They're getting away with this s--- and no one steps in to stop them! It's a f---ing disgrace!"  
  
The following evening, those words had hit the media—and the career of one of the most powerful men in Hollywood had imploded. The L.A. sheriff’s department is now probing whether Mee was pressured by higher-ups, some of whom know Gibson as a donor to the department’s fallen-officer fund, to omit details from his report (four key pages of the document were leaked). Prominent members of the entertainment and Jewish communities have denounced the remarks, among them powerful agent Ari Emanuel, who urged his peers to “professionally shun” Gibson, and Barbara Walters, who announced on _The View_ that she would no longer see his films. Jennifer Todd, Cobain and Theron's founding partner in Springbok, who oversees the day to day operations, announced that the deal with Gibson's production company, Icon Productions, was being cancelled due to the controversy. Gibson, who weathered charges of anti-Semitism after the release of his 2004 movie _The Passion of the Christ_ , entered an alcohol-treatment program and issued not one but two apologies. “I acted like a person completely out of control … and said things I do not believe to be true and which are despicable,” he said in the first apology. “I am deeply ashamed.”  
  
That may not be enough. While Gibson publicly thanked Mee for “probably saving me from myself” and issued a plea to meet with Jewish leaders for a “discussion to discern the appropriate path for healing,” (as well as stating to Springbok, "What I did was inexcusable, and I thoroughly regret hurting the wonderful people at Springbok Productions with my actions,") through his spokesman Alan Nierob, who is the son of Holocaust survivors, not everyone who heard his appeal was in a forgiving mood.  
  
“His career is over,” says one entertainment executive. “He’s going to become toxic.” Icon has been dropped by ABC from a planned miniseries about Dutch Jews during World War II, and the commercial fate of Gibson’s next film, _Apocalypto_ —an epic about the ancient Maya people filmed entirely in their language, which was the first film in the planned Springbok deal and is slated for release in December—remains uncertain. Because of Springbok, and especially Nirvana, having a major role in the trial of entertainment mogul David Geffen for aiding and abetting the crimes of Harvey Weinstein and Bryan Singer, there is naturally a question of whether their testimony will be battered by their involvement with Gibson. But the biggest questions surround Gibson himself and the demons that seem to have consumed him.  
  
Friends of all faiths say Gibson is a good man, loving father and devoted husband with a blind spot: an addiction to alcohol that, by his own admission, has brought him to the brink of suicide. Asked by Diane Sawyer in 2004 if he seriously contemplated ending his life, Gibson said, “I really did…. You have to be insane to despair in that way.” Anchored by faith and family (he has seven children with Robyn, 50, his wife of 26 years), Gibson appeared to have reined in his drinking in recent years. At a 2001 Oscar party, says L.A. acting coach Ivana Chubbuck, Gibson seemed “intent on being sober and was helping others stay sober.” He was especially known for his generous assistance to Robert Downey, Jr., who gave him a role in the 2003 Icon film _The Singing Detective_ at a time when the addiction-addled actor was uninsurable, and also particularly went to bat for Downey for him receiving his notable "comeback" roles in Richard Linklater's _A Scanner Darkly_ (currently in theaters) and David Fincher's _Zodiac_ (planned for release in February).  
  
But in recent weeks a different Gibson emerged. After a grueling nine-month shoot in Veracruz, Mexico, for _Apocalypto_ , Gibson told friends he had finally kicked cigarettes. “He was cleansing his body,” says a friend. However, Gibson was also drinking again, visiting Moonshadows more than once. And the more he drank, says the friend, the more self-destructive he became: “Something snapped—I would say he had a death wish.” But at least some in Malibu say the star had never really dried out in the first place. “This doesn’t surprise around here,” says a longtime resident. “This is Mel. If you are looking for a story about this being an example of him suddenly spinning out of control, you aren’t going to find it. Maybe this will finally knock him off his pedestal and force him to look at himself.”  
  
Gibson will have time to reflect during treatment. But outside, even friends are wondering, was his outburst the drink talking, or the real Mel? “I know Mel,” says Tom Sherak, a film exec who worked on the distribution of Gibson’s _Braveheart_. “I’ve not heard him say [anything anti-Semitic]. Those things in his head—which we all find very offensive, especially those of us who are Jewish—I don’t see portrayed when I’m around him.”  
  
The sixth of the 11 children of Hutton Gibson, now 87, and Ann Reilly Gibson (who died in 1990), Gibson has always lived a life of contradiction. Raised in upstate New York until the age of 12, he and the rest of his family moved to Australia in 1968 so that the sons in the family could avoid the Vietnam draft. There, life was defined by an ultraconservative brand of Catholicism embraced by Hutton, a former railroad brakeman, in reaction to the 1962-65 reforms of Vatican II. The self-published author of three books critical of the contemporary church, Hutton Gibson, who now lives in West Virginia, has denied the Holocaust, telling a _New York Times_ reporter: “Go ask … a guy who operates a crematorium what it takes to get rid of a body. Now, 6 million?” Mel Gibson has denied he shares such views but refuses to rebuke his father publicly, citing their close relationship.  
  
One thing he has been far more outspoken about is his battle with alcohol, which dates back to his Australian youth. Gibson’s early Hollywood career was marked by enormous success—and drunken binges. On the set of the 1984 movie _The Bounty_ , Gibson reportedly feuded with Anthony Hopkins because his costar, a recovering alcoholic, did not drink. Also that year, he was arrested for driving drunk in Toronto, and his drinking once prompted an intervention from _Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome_ costar Tina Turner, who sent Gibson a photograph of himself with the message “Don’t F— This Up.”  
  
The tough talk—and a few long stints in rehab—helped for a while. But Gibson has said his marriage and return to the Church got him to turn a corner. “The real medal goes to my wife, who’s a wonderful woman,” he told Sawyer in ’04. During his recent _Apocalypto_ shoot in Mexico, “Mel came home on the weekends, Robyn visited him,” says a friend. The recent controversy hasn’t changed that. “She’s as supportive a wife as you’ll see. His marriage is as strong as ever.”  
  
Despite her support, there were moments, Gibson told _The New Yorker_ in 2003, “when you get to that point where you don’t want to live and you don’t want to die—it’s a desperate, horrible place to be.” In that instant, Gibson, alone, raised himself up, using his faith. “I just hit my knees. And I had to use the _Passion of Christ_ and [His] wounds to heal my wounds. And I’ve just been meditating on it for 12 years.” That moment of healing led to Gibson’s commitment to put the _Passion_ on film—a movie, self-financed for $25 million, that some critics saw as blaming Jews for Christ’s crucifixion even as it took in more than $600 million worldwide from a grateful, mostly Christian audience.  
  
Since then, Gibson has thrown himself into his next project—an admittedly esoteric movie about a Mayan warrior hero with a Native American cast. While in Veracruz, “the weather was often pretty bad, oppressive and raining, so Mel would get upset a lot,” says actor Mauricio Amuy. “He’d be screaming at the cast.” Two actors contend that Gibson sometimes launched into long discussions of his religious beliefs. “He sometimes started talking about how the Jews were at fault for the killing of Jesus,” says Amuy. “I got the feeling he didn’t like Jews.” (Nierob, Gibson’s rep, says that the actors misinterpreted Gibson and that Amuy was on-set for only three days. Geffen's defense team, mainly Michael Avenatti, says otherwise, claiming not only that Amuy, whom he is subpoenaing to appear in the trial, is truthful, but that Springbok was fully aware of Gibson's "real feeling" and lied to protect themselves.)  
  
That comes as a surprise to friends—many of them Jewish—in California, who describe him as a good man who would pull over if your car broke down, as a strict but devoted father who has raised seven decent children, and as an irrepressible on-set joker who knows just the right moment to pull out the clown nose while filming Christ being flayed by the Romans.  
  
“He was very excited about his [new] film,” says longtime friend, Hollywood producer Dean Devlin, who saw Gibson the day of his arrest. “I recently had a baby, and he was going on about how great it is to have kids, how it changed his life.” There was no sign Gibson had been drinking again. Says Devlin: “He must be going through hell.”  
  
It may be only the beginning. But if Gibson is convicted of DUI after leaving rehab, it’s unlikely he’ll get any jail time. “Malibu is not the toughest of courts,” says Lawrence Taylor, an L.A. attorney who specializes in drunk-driving cases. “He’ll probably get DUI school for a few months and be on probation for about three years. Legally, his alleged comments are irrelevant—a judge will likely not take that into consideration.”  
  
The damage to his career may take far longer to repair. “People are capable of horrors, of atrocities. We’re also capable of wonderful things, of good things,” Gibson told ABC in ’04. “I’m somewhere between Howard Stern and St. Francis of Assisi on the scale of morality.” Now those close to him are trying to help Gibson be the man he wants to be. “I like that he apologized,” says old friend Tom Sherak. “And now he has to mean it.”

* * *

"David Geffen Dead from Suicide," by Scott Collins, _Los Angeles Times_ , September 27, 2006

Entertainment mogul David Geffen was found dead from carbon monoxide poisoning earlier this morning. The former heavy hitter, who had been convicted on all counts in his trial a few days earlier, was awaiting sentencing. (In a stunning coincidence, former Enron CEO Kenneth Lay was found dead from a heart attack in his vacation home in Aspen, also awaiting sentencing after having been convicted on all counts in a trial regarding the collapse of Enron.) The authorities and the coroner's office declared the death a suicide.

Geffen's trial had been one of the biggest spectacles in the history of the judicial system, with virtually all of Hollywood trotted out to give testimony (either directly or videotaped) or sworn affidavits regarding Geffen's entire history, all the way back from his days founding and heading Asylum Records in the '70s. In a trial where the likes of Carrie Fisher, Joni Mitchell, Jackson Browne, Don Henley, Glenn Frey, Don Felder, Neil Young, Donna Summer, Michael Jackson, Barry Diller, Steven Tyler, Joe Perry, Axl Rose, Slash, Duff McKagan, Kurt Cobain, Dave Grohl, Krist Novoselic, Pat Smear, Taylor Hawkins, Jerry Bruckheimer, Michael Eisner, Joe Roth, Amy Pascal, Bernard Weinraub, Bob Iger, Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg, George Lucas, Jimmy Iovine, Irving Azoff, Jerry Weintraub, Jon Peters, Peter Guber, Walter Yetnikoff, Tommy Mottola, Michele Anthony, Don Ienner, Mo Ostin, Lenny Waronker, Elliott Roberts, Elliot Mintz, Yoko Ono, Harvey Weinstein, Bob Weinstein, Bryan Singer, Roland Emmerich, Ivana Trump and Marla Maples all gave testimony or written statements, there was bound to be some kind of fireworks.

A litany of sins was trotted out against Geffen, including some very famous and well-worn stories of Geffen in his earlier years, regarding royalties for the acts on his roster, of seeking to cash out early and give up focusing on business, of double-dealing and bad faith, of launching proxy wars against those who had suddenly earned his ire. There were also new stories, of seeking to entrap Michael Jackson in a phony Spielberg/Disney Peter Pan project while Spielberg was at the time working on the film _Hook_ with Robin Williams and making it look like Spielberg had suddenly betrayed the pop star, of helping manufacture the 1993 allegations of child molestation against Jackson and failed attempts to create another allegation; of a power play at Jackson's label and manager to further entrap him down a road that would lead to him defaulting on loans where he'd used the Beatles catalog as collateral, and doing so while aiding and abetting the criminality of other, more powerful figures in the industry, including Weinstein, Singer, and the late real estate mogul Donald Trump, who after dying in a car crash in 1997, was accused by dozens of women of having raped them, including his first wife, Ivana, who had earlier made such an accusation during their divorce, then retracted.

Geffen's lawyer, a blustering and theatrical attorney named Michael Avenatti, made wild aspersions of his own, including attempts to distract with "trials within trials." He moved to discredit Henley and Frey by co-opting former Eagles member Don Felder, who was kicked out in 2001 and launched his own lawsuit against them, using Felder's testimony to attack the band's leaders. He particularly focused on Nirvana's testimony; saying that Cobain et al's testimony could not be trusted because of Cobain's company, Springbok Productions, facing bad publicity regarding the DUI and apparently anti-Semitic outburst of Mel Gibson when Springbok helped produce Gibson's upcoming film _Apocalypto_. Avenatti subpoenaed several actors from the film to testify about Gibson's behavior and charged that Springbok lied for Gibson and tried to cover his anti-Semitic feelings from the public and work in bad faith, a charge the jury clearly ignored.

Geffen's conviction will still leave massive impacts, even with his suicide. Actor Kevin Spacey, who is alleged to have committed a string of rapes against young men, is about to face his own day in court. As is billionaire financier Jeffrey Epstein, chronicled in a 2003 _Vanity Fair_ article, and who was often mentioned in testimony as a figure Geffen had helped get away with shocking sexual assaults of underage women, shuttling them to his private island in the Caribbean on a private jet he dubbed the "Lolita Express." And comedian Bill Cosby will face a civil suit against several dozen women for drugging and raping them over the decades. Not to mention, the ouster of Fox News CEO Roger Ailes and lead anchor Bill O'Reilly for various sexual assaults back in August is having massive ripples regarding the conservative-leaning news outlet.

* * *

Full Transcript of Diane Sawyer's Interview of Mel Gibson on _Good Morning America_ , aired on ABC October 12 and 13, 2006: **  
  
**DIANE SAWYER: One would not expect that the life of a Hollywood actor and director should suddenly become ingrained with dealing with one of the toughest issues that American society has to face. But when that person is Mel Gibson, all bets are off? Last July, Gibson made headlines when he was arrested for drunk driving and shocked the world with statements many have interpreted as anti-Semitic. And this comes right in the middle as he is about to release his latest film, _Apocalypto_ , a film with Disney and Springbok Productions. The fallout from Gibson's remarks has been immense, but now, for the first time, the man himself will answer and give his side of the story. We talked with Mel Gibson at his office, and as of today, he is two and a half months sober. By the way, no questions were off limits.  
  
SAWYER: July 28?  
  
MEL GIBSON: Yes, a day to remember.  
  
SAWYER: How did that day start?  
  
GIBSON: Much like any other day. I went to work, you know, saw a bunch of people. I had a screening, I met with a friend of mine. He screened his film for me.  
  
SAWYER: And then what?  
  
GIBSON: Well, of course, I guess I must have been a little overwrought. So, and that’s what happens. Too much pressure, too much work. You, you do things that, that go against good judgment. So that’s it. A few drinks later and I was in the back of a police car wailing. So…  
  
SAWYER: A few drinks later. Do you know how many?  
  
GIBSON: No, I don’t. But I know it was tequila.  
  
SAWYER: How long had you been drinking again?  
  
GIBSON: A couple of months. Years go by and you’re fine. And then all of a sudden in a heartbeat, in an instant, on an impulse, somebody shoves a glass of Mezcal in front of your nose and says, ‘It’s from Oaxaca.” And you go (makes noise) and it’s burning its way through your esophagus and you go, ‘Oh, man, what did I do that for? Can’t put the toothpaste back in the tube.”  
  
SAWYER: Were you drinking from the open bottle of tequila in the car?  
  
GIBSON: Yeah. I had a couple slugs, yeah.  
  
SAWYER: So how drunk were you?  
  
GIBSON: It’s not a question of how drunk you are or you’re, you’re impaired. Your judgment is impaired enough to do insane things like try and drive at high speeds. Even a couple of drinks, you lose all humility, everything. It’s just, you become a braggart and a blowhard and…  
  
SAWYER: Yeah. One of the things you said was about owning Malibu.  
  
GIBSON: Yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, right. Yes. I, I'm going, "I own this place," as I sat in the back of a police car with my hands cuffed.  
  
SAWYER (Voiceover): And then, as the officer arrested him, a tirade against Jews.  
  
SAWYER: Take me back to that moment, as you remember it, then. Officer James Mee? Did you know him? Did you know he was Jewish?  
  
GIBSON: No. I don’t think so. I don’t think so. I found out later. But that’s, you know, all...  
  
SAWYER: Why would you have asked him that?  
  
GIBSON: I don’t know. It’s, you see, it’s all, I didn’t know if he was or wasn’t. I mean, I said horrible things to him. And he was pretty patient.  
  
SAWYER: These are the words.  
  
SAWYER (Voiceover): How horrible does he think they were? I read to him the officer’s account of the words he used that night. ”Expletive’ Jews.” And to Officer Mee, ‘Are you a Jew?” And…  
  
SAWYER: "The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world.” Are those anti-Semitic words?  
  
GIBSON: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. It sounds horrible. And I’m ashamed of that. That came out of my mouth. And I’m not that. That’s not who I am, you know.  
  
SAWYER (Voiceover): Gibson also unleashed a flurry of angry words against Springbok Productions, the production company founded by Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain and his wife, the Oscar-winning actress Charlize Theron, with whom he'd working on _Apocalypto_ to be released by Disney this holiday season. As a result of Gibson's arrest, Springbok CEO Jennifer Todd announced that while this film would be released, a three-picture deal they had made with Gibson would be cancelled.  
  
SAWYER: We have a world in which alcohol is used to excuse behavior.  
  
GIBSON: Sure. And it’s always, well, alcohol is used to kill pain. And, and it is no excuse, by the way. It’s not a good enough excuse.  
  
SAWYER: If the police officer had been black…  
  
GIBSON: Maybe. I don’t know.  
  
SAWYER: What would you have said?  
  
GIBSON: Who knows? I would have, I’d have to get loaded again and tell you and then be in those conditions again, because it’s unpredictable what’s gonna come flying out.  
  
SAWYER (Voiceover): At the police station, still angry, he said to a female sergeant, ‘What do you think you’re looking at?” Adding a reference to her breasts.  
  
SAWYER: You also said during your arrest that Nirvana and Springbok were 'disrupting the social order'. What did you mean by this?  
  
GIBSON: It's simple, really. I resented how easily they were able to transition from being your average rock stars to being corporate moguls. But I've come to terms with that since. It was something said in a fit of rage when I felt completely and utterly powerless, but I respect Springbok and Kurt Cobain for all they've done for entertainment.  
  
SAWYER: Do you regret your relationship with them ending?  
  
GIBSON: Oh of course, I definitely wish it didn't have to end this early or on this note. Kurt, Charlize and Jennifer are all wonderful people and I was honored to be able to make _Apocalypto_ for them. It's going to take some time to adjust to this, to have to strike out again without that sort of comfort and consistency.  
  
SAWYER (Voiceover): Of course, many wondered why someone like Gibson, who besides being known as being a devout Catholic, is also known as an unreconstructed conservative, would latch onto a company like Springbok in the first place, given the liberal beliefs of its founders.  
  
SAWYER: I know that you've been outspoken in the past for your politically conservative views. What do you make of Nirvana's recent albums and their left-leaning concept albums?  
  
GIBSON: I knew from the start that me and Kurt wouldn't agree politically on almost everything, but I respect him for pulling through with his ideas and basically just telling the world that he didn't care. It reminds me a lot of how I am with films, so while I may think _Dixie Dope_ and _Americaca_ make statements I don't agree with, at least they're making the statements they want to. And that's probably why they're still selling out stadiums.  
  
SAWYER: So, there was no problems between you all, until now?  
  
GIBSON: None whatsoever. I've enjoyed their company, they've enjoyed mine, we've had some very healthy, mutually respectful debates, but we've never left angry. In fact, I kind of surprised them, because I told them I don't agree with President Bush and the war in Iraq, something they also feel. Kurt actually said, "I thought you'd be more like Clint Eastwood and tell us to support the troops." Look, I may be a Republican, but I'm also my own person. In fact, they reached out to me, to give words of support when this all went down. I still consider them my friends.  
  
SAWYER (Voiceover): But now, of course, a highly-publicized alliance has been blown to smithereens, all because of what happened that night.  
  
SAWYER: I’ve heard people say, you know, I am a, angry drunk, fill in the blank. I am a…  
  
GIBSON: Happy drunk until I snap for no reason and just turn.  
  
SAWYER: Where does this anger come from?  
  
GIBSON: I have no idea. I just have been angry all my life. And I try not to have it manifest itself, you know. You, you try and keep a lock on it. And it really isn’t, it’s real back there someplace and, you know, I’ve talked to people about that. Where is it coming from? I can get really mad about, I can murder inanimate objects. You should see me choking the toaster in the morning, you know, so I’m kind of a work in progress right now. So you got me a little green. See? I mean, I just got out of the straitjacket with the messy hair and everything.  
  
SAWYER: The mug shot.  
  
GIBSON: Yeah. The mug shot. The first thing that went through my mind was like, Nick Nolte’s photograph. So I did my best with a finger combing in the water fountain, to sort of like splash a little water on my face, to not take one of those hideous mug shots because I knew it would be around. So, vanity, vanity won out.  
  
SAWYER (Voiceover): The first time Gibson was arrested drunk was 1984, after rear-ending a car. He entered AA in 1991. But he has talked about his suicidal despair at relapsing. His family has had to endure it all. And this time, the added horror of watching the news about the bigoted words.  
  
GIBSON: Oh, I just went home and some of my kids were there and I talked to them for a little bit and it was a little, little rough that morning. So I chased it down with a few cold ones, you know, in the full knowledge…  
  
SAWYER: That morning?  
  
GIBSON: Oh, yeah. It was kind of unbearable to face. So it was something I thought, ‘Well, this is it. This’ll be the end of it but I just have to get through this morning,” you know.  
  
SAWYER: But wait a minute. You talked to your kids while you were slugging down more to get through it?  
  
GIBSON: Yeah. You’re not operating well. But you know you have to do something. And, I mean, I wasn’t sort of flashing it in front of them or anything but…  
  
SAWYER: What do you say? Is – ‘I’m sorry?”  
  
GIBSON: Yeah, you do. I’ve apologized more than anyone I know. So it’s getting old. And…  
  
SAWYER: How long is your list of apologies necessary?  
  
GIBSON: Oh, oh, huge. For my whole life.  
  
SAWYER: How did you tell your wife?  
  
GIBSON: I just told her, you know, straight out. Slipped again. Yeah. And she was, like, of course, you know. She doesn’t like that, so, but she, you know, was gracious, compassionate.  
  
SAWYER (Voiceover): Her name is Robyn. They have been married 26 years and have seven children.  
  
SAWYER: You said once that she gets the medals because she is the one who hopes.  
  
GIBSON: Yeah. Sure. Yeah. She hopes. She bears the brunt. And it’s no different this time. So there you have it.  
  
SAWYER: How many times can you ask her?  
  
GIBSON: Oh, boy. I don’t know. Good question. I don’t know the answer to it.  
  
SAWYER (Voiceover): He says the torment is every time that you relapse it’s harder to fight your way back.  
  
GIBSON: The risk of everything, life, limb, family, is not enough to keep you from it. That’s the, that’s the hell of it. You are indefensible against it if your nature is one of alcoholism.  
  
SAWYER: That you will sacrifice…  
  
GIBSON: Anything. So you must keep that under arrest, in a sense. But you cannot do it of yourself. And people can help, yeah. But it’s God. You’ve got to go there. You’ve got to do it. And/or you won’t survive. That’s all there is to it. Look, this whole experience in a way, for me, I’m sort of viewing it now as a kind of a blessing because…  
  
SAWYER: A blessing?  
  
GIBSON: Yeah. Well, firstly, I got stopped before I did any real damage to anyone else. Thank God for that. I didn’t hurt myself, you know. I didn’t leave my kids fatherless. That’s good, that’s a blessing, okay? The other thing is sometimes you need a cold bucket of water in the face to sort of snap to because you’re dealing with a, a sort of the, a malady of the soul, an obsession of the mind and a physical allergy. And some people need a big tap on the shoulder. In my case, public humiliation on a global scale seems to be what was required.  
  
SAWYER (Voiceover): Humiliation for him. Outrage from others. And a lot of questions about alcohol revealing who you really are.  
  
SAWYER: People say alcohol just liberates you to say what you really feel. It’s what you really feel. It’s not changing.  
  
GIBSON: Well, that’s patently false, I think, because it’s like, alcohol loosens your tongue and makes you act, say and behave in a way that is not you.  
  
SAWYER: Somebody said, ‘I do not believe tequila can turn an unbiased person into a raging anti-Semite. Alcohol removes inhibitions in vino veritas.”  
  
GIBSON: Oh, yeah. Well, that’s the old Roman saying, in vino veritas, yeah. Well, they don’t know what they’re talking about, it’s as simple as that. Or they don’t have the problem and they don’t understand it.  
  
SAWYER: Again, there are lots of people who get drunk and don’t say anti-Semitic things.  
  
GIBSON: Oh, yes there are. People say all sorts of horrible things…  
  
SAWYER: No. But they don’t…  
  
GIBSON: …about anything.  
  
SAWYER: Yeah.  
  
GIBSON: And not, not just anti-Semitic things. They say – horrendous things. They say, they say to their parents, ‘I hate you and I want you to die.” And, you know, I mean, they don’t mean that stuff. It’s, it’s the stuff that comes out when you’re loaded. It’s, it’s extreme.  
  
SAWYER: But if it’s not in you, is it gonna come out?  
  
GIBSON: It has to, it has have some kind of place somewhere. And you have to ask where is it coming from? Where is it coming from?  
  
SAWYER (Voiceover): And that is exactly where we will begin tomorrow.  
  
SAWYER: So he admits they were bigoted statements. He admits that they were in him. Tomorrow we debate where they came from. And every viewer will decide for themselves how they feel about his answers.  
  
SAWYER: That’s right. Mel Gibson, part two this morning. As we said, it is a phenomenon of American life that a Hollywood actor and director has become the fulcrum for discussion of some of the toughest issues in American society. For instance, do you give the same weight to an anti-Semitic tirade while drunk as anti-Semitism while sober? And since Gibson acknowledged yesterday that even if you are drunk, the words have to come from someplace inside you. Where? In the past two months, he’s been sober in AA meetings five days a week and he says he’s begun a series of conversations, starting with Jewish people closest to him and some community leaders, more to come. He says he genuinely wants to learn why that night he committed what he calls the sin of bigotry.  
  
SAWYER (Voiceover): As everyone knows, Mel Gibson is devoutly religious, which is what inspired him to make _The Passion of the Christ_. His church is a Catholic splinter group called Traditionalist Catholics who feel the modern Catholic Church has abandoned the real faith. His father, 88-year-old Hutton Gibson, is well known for his writings attacking the Vatican. The Traditionalist Church believes in the Latin mass and literal reading of the Bible. And Gibson has talked about a war of biblical proportion. Though he says no one can say when it will happen or where, which brings us back to the night of July 28th, and what he says may have been in his mind as he drunkenly said, ‘Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world.”  
  
GIBSON: Maybe it was just that very day that Lebanon and Israel were at it.  
  
SAWYER (Voiceover): It was the 17th day of the raging war in Lebanon. And there were a lot of people worrying that the crisis was escalating out of control.  
  
GIBSON: And since I was a kid, in the ’60s, ’70s, ’80s, ’90s, and now in the new millennium, you can read of an-ever escalating kind of conflagration over there in the Middle East. I remember thinking when I was 20, ‘Man, that place is gonna drag us all into the black hole,” you know, just the difficulty over there. And you start thinking, ‘Will I ever see my grandchildren grow up, you know, or what’s gonna become of the world, who’s gonna press the button?” And that’s fear-related. Okay? So, you know, you have your own fears about these things.  
  
SAWYER: But there’s a difference between saying that place is a tinderbox and the constellation of things happening there could take us all down, and saying the Jews are responsible for all the wars.  
  
GIBSON: Well, I did say that.  
  
SAWYER: The Jews are responsible.  
  
GIBSON: Well, strictly speaking, that’s, that’s not true because it takes two to tango.  
  
SAWYER: What are the Jews responsible for?  
  
GIBSON: What are they responsible for? I think that they’re not blameless in the conflict. There’s been aggression and retaliation and aggression. It’s just part of being in conflict and being at war. So they’re not blameless. Of course, they’re not. Okay. Now, when you’re loaded, you know, the balance of how you see things, it comes out the wrong way. I know that it’s not as black-and-white as that. I know that you just can’t, you know, roar about things like that, that it’s wrong.  
  
SAWYER: A lot of people are gonna say, ‘Wait a minute. He’s still blaming the Jews.”  
  
GIBSON: No. But I didn’t say that.  
  
SAWYER: "He’s still blaming Israel.”  
  
GIBSON: No, no, no, but, did I say that?  
  
SAWYER (Voiceover): After several rounds on the Middle East, he said this is his statement of his true feelings.  
  
GIBSON: Let me be real clear here in sobriety, sitting here in front of you, on national television, that I don’t believe that Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world. I mean, that’s an outrageous, drunken statement.  
  
SAWYER (Voiceover): So was something else eating at him that night? He says he has also realized he had been harboring an old resentment.  
  
GIBSON: And the other thing, the other place it may have come from is, you know, as you know, a couple of years ago I released the film _The Passion_. Now, even before anyone saw a frame of film for an entire year, I was subjected to a pretty brutal sort of public beating. And during the course of that, I think I probably had my rights violated in many different ways as an American, you know, as an artist, as a Christian, as, just as a human being, you know.  
  
CLIP FROM “THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST”  
  
SAWYER (Voiceover): It was the movie that became a kind of Rorschach test.  
  
ACTOR (MALE): (Speaking in foreign language).  
  
SAWYER (Voiceover): Gibson and tens of millions of Christians who saw the film say it was simply evoking the New Testament version of Jews, Romans and the brutal crucifixion of Jesus. But the leaders of several Jewish organizations launched a campaign, arguing that Gibson had seeded the film with deliberately anti-Semitic images, and they warned that Gibson might be inciting a new wave of hatred, even violence, against Jews. He says that never happened.  
  
GIBSON: The film came out, it was released and you could have heard a pin drop, you know. Even the crickets weren’t chirping. But the other thing I never heard was one single word of apology. I thought I dealt with that stuff, all forgiveness. But the human heart’s a funny thing, sometimes you can bear the scars of resentment and it will come out, you know, when you’re overwrought and you take a few drinks. So…  
  
SAWYER: Is there hate in your heart? Is there anger in your heart?  
  
GIBSON: There was anger for it, from that, I think, because I felt that I was unjustly treated. My resentment stemmed from certain individuals treating me in a certain way.  
  
SAWYER (Voiceover): But we asked about those people he thought should apologize to him. Can they now argue they were right about what he is inside?  
  
SAWYER: Can you say anti-Semitic things and not be anti-Semitic? Can you say intolerant things and not be an intolerant person?  
  
GIBSON: I don’t know. I don’t know the answer to that question. Because one changes from day to day and there are different forces exercised on you that may or may not, and people every day say things they don’t mean and things they don’t feel. They may feel them temporarily. I mean, we’re, we’re, we’re all broken.  
  
SAWYER: The people at Springbok got attacked for their association with you, after this all broke out. During David Geffen's trial, his lawyer, Michael Avenatti, even said that Springbok "knew what kind of person he was, lied for him, and got caught."  
  
GIBSON: Oh, that's ridiculous. Look, here's the thing about me and Springbok. I know them, they know me. I basically was given a clean bill of health, and it was true. All of this, all this furor or whatever, is all because I got stressed, and I handled it badly. That's all. I said what I said, and I can't take it back. And this idea of there being a coverup, some kind of foul play or pressure, is just patently false. They would have no reason to lie for me, and I have no reason to lie for them. And people like Mr. Avenatti...well, I don't want to say another thing I'll regret later, so we'll just leave it there. I have to learn to hear other people more.  
  
SAWYER (Voiceover): And he says he is now learning more about those who were hearing his words. In an earlier apology, he had asked the Jewish community for dialogue and help.  
  
GIBSON: I heard back that a woman who had read the apology actually wept with relief. Now, that sort of hit me. I was, like, relief? Oh, my God, she was afraid. She was terrified. And, wow, you know? I don’t think I realized until, like, a couple of, four days later, five days later, that what I did was press a big fear button.  
  
SAWYER: You didn’t realize that?  
  
GIBSON: I didn’t realize the level of fear that, that was there.  
  
SAWYER: What did you think it was?  
  
GIBSON: The, it was just the stupid ramblings of a drunkard, you know. And, I guess, I had to sort of think, well, hang on, it’s conceivable that they think I could be the next goose-stepping maniac to come into their neighborhood, you know. I don’t know.  
  
SAWYER (Voiceover): But for several years, there has been one other question that has plagued him, the fact that his father, Hutton Gibson, has famously, publicly, expressed doubts that six million Jews were really murdered in the Holocaust.  
  
SAWYER: And the last time I went down this trail, you…  
  
GIBSON: Yeah. I bit your head off.  
  
SAWYER (Voiceover): It was three years ago in an interview, Mel Gibson began by telling us he does believe six million Jews were murdered.  
  
GIBSON: It was an atrocity of monumental proportion.  
  
SAWYER (Voiceover): But when we asked him to repudiate the assertions of his dad…  
  
GIBSON: He’s my father. Got to leave it alone, Diane. Got to leave it alone.  
  
SAWYER: But I wanna go back because your father has been on the record, this is not an assumption. He has been on the record saying things like the Holocaust, quote, ‘mostly fiction.” That it’s been hyped out of proportion.  
  
GIBSON: Yeah. Well, we’re talking about me here right now, and me taking responsibility for my words and actions. And, I’m not, I’m certainly not gonna use him to sort of put anything off of me.  
  
SAWYER: Even if it’s the explanation for what happened that night?  
  
GIBSON: It isn’t the explanation for what happened that night. It isn’t. It has nothing to do with it. It’s, that’s in my own heart. I was taught that there are good and bad people of any race and creed, you know.  
  
SAWYER: What’s the main thing we all need to do to bridge prejudice and bigotry, intolerance?  
  
GIBSON: Have dinner. That’s it.  
  
SAWYER: Talk?  
  
GIBSON: Yeah. And hear.  
  
SAWYER (Voiceover): But we asked about those in the Hollywood community who say it’s too late and he should be ostracized.  
  
SAWYER: What do you feel about them?  
  
GIBSON: Well, I feel sad because, you know, they’ve obviously been hurt and frightened and offended enough to feel that they have to do that and it’s their choice. I have to stress, though, once more, that Springbok, while they've cut off our business deal, are still on my side. I get messages from the three of them often, and they support me, want to help me heal. And that matters a great deal more than ensuring any movies we make together are successful.  
  
SAWYER (Voiceover): In the meantime, Gibson says he has to go on battling his old demons of rage and alcohol. And hoping, even if there’s not a Hollywood ending in sight, that somehow, somewhere, there’s at least another chance.  
  
SAWYER: Somebody said to me once, ‘Pain is the precursor to change.”  
  
GIBSON: Yeah. Who said that? Socrates?  
  
SAWYER: (Voiceover) In fact, it was Gibson himself.  
  
SAWYER: How ashamed have you been?  
  
GIBSON: Oh, quite ashamed. Yeah. And it’s, it’s, you know, that’s the price you pay because sometimes it’s what you need. Many people have reached out. My goodness. I mean, it’s, I’ve been overwhelmed. It almost choked me. I was so overwhelmed by the response of friends, family, Springbok and, you know, even the Jewish community. I mean, the, the letters and stuff that came in were really encouraging. Sort of, you know, sort of broke my heart a little bit, so it’s like they understood. There’s a lot of compassion out there. So – that was kind of overwhelming for me. So it’s, and I’m, I don’t wanna disappoint anyone again, you know? And what I need to do to heal myself and to be assuring and allay the fears of others and to heal them if they had any heart, you know, any heart wounds from something I may have said. So this is the last thing I wanna be is that kind of monster.  
  
SAWYER: So as we said yesterday, everyone will decide for themselves about Mel Gibson according to their own definitions of repentance, which we looked up. And by the way, at its Latin root, it means to suffer a deeper pain. A couple of other notes about him, by the way. We asked him if he was going to give some large sums of money to inter-religious causes. He said he is earmarking his donations privately. He does not believe in seeking public credit for what you give. And as you may have read, his Holocaust project with Disney was cancelled, but he says he may do it somewhere else and added that he did this interview now because he says he doesn’t want this issue ever to be used as publicity for the Disney and Springbok film he has coming out later this year, an historical epic entitled _Apocalypto_ , which will release this December. And by the way, in the next hour we ask Elie Wiesel, Maya Angelou and others to address the topic of atonement. We’ll be back.

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"MGM Partners With Tom Cruise and Paula Wagner to Form New United Artists, Paula Wagner to Serve as CEO of the New UA," BusinessWire, November 2, 2006  
  
United Artists, the studio founded by movie greats Douglas Fairbanks, Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford and D.W. Griffith some 85 years ago and responsible for delivering such iconic film franchises as _Rocky_ , _Pink Panther_ and James Bond, will be reborn under a partnership formed between Tom Cruise, Paula Wagner and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. The announcement was made today by Harry E. Sloan, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, MGM. Cruise and Wagner, one of the most successful film production teams ever, will drive the rebirth of United Artists as MGM’s operating partner. Along with their substantial ownership, Cruise and Wagner will have control of setting the company’s production slate, from development to production greenlighting ability, subject to certain parameters. Wagner will serve as Chief Executive Officer of United Artists, overseeing the day to day operations of the studio alongside her longstanding producing partner Cruise, who will star in as well as produce films for United Artists and also be available to appear in film projects for other studios. Cruise last teamed up with the original UA on _Rain Man_ in 1988, which won four Academy Awards including Best Picture.  
  
In establishing United Artists as a new entity, MGM and Cruise/Wagner will return the studio to its former roots by recognizing what made UA great in the first place — studio management by creative talent who can best encourage and support other creative talent. The talent friendly studio will be reborn as a place where producers, writers, directors and actors can thrive in a creative environment, developing and producing entertaining film projects. The plan would allow artists throughout the community to pursue their creative visions outside of the traditional studio system. The studio plans to have a production slate of approximately four films each year, which may increase in the future. World-wide marketing and distribution will be handled by partner MGM. UA will be a major supplier of feature films to MGM, with production and development of UA movies being fully financed by MGM and its partners. MGM is the only major studio controlled by private equity firms which include Providence Equity Partners and Texas Pacific Group along with industry partners Comcast Corp. and Sony Corp. of America.” The agreement between Cruise/Wagner Productions and MGM/UA, which takes effect immediately, was brokered by Cruise/Wagner’s rep CAA and attorney Bert Fields.  
  
“Partnering with Tom Cruise and Paula Wagner, we have the ideal creative foundation from which to reintroduce the United Artists brand," said Sloan in making the announcement. "Tom and Paula are the modern versions of the iconic founders of United Artists — Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford, Charlie Chaplin and D.W. Griffith — and our partnership with them reaffirms our commitment to providing creative talent with a comfortable home at United Artists and a dedicated distribution partner in MGM. United Artists is once again the haven for independent filmmakers and a vital resource in developing quality filmed entertainment consistent with MGM’s modern studio model."  
  
Commented Cruise: "Paula and I are very respectful of the rich history and tradition of United Artists, and we welcome the opportunity to contribute to that legacy by providing a wide range of releases that appeal to all audiences. It’s our desire to create an environment where filmmakers can thrive and see their visions realized." "This is a great opportunity for Tom and me to re-establish the United Artists brand and to work closely with the creative community," stated Wagner. "As studio partner-operators, we will provide a supportive environment and infrastructure for filmmakers that will allow them to do their best work."  
  
"Providing Tom and Paula with the ability to greenlight films under the UA banner validates MGM’s commitment to and recognition of independent producers as the true creative nucleus of Hollywood filmmaking," said Rick Sands, COO of MGM. "The relationship between UA, which will provide the creative environment for independent producers to nurture content of their own vision and MGM, which will apply its expertise to distribution and marketing to those projects, is an ideal collaboration of art and business. The resurgence of United Artists will take us another step closer to realizing the full revitalization of MGM. Harry and I are personally thrilled to be working with Tom and Paula."  
  
Wagner and Cruise launched Cruise/Wagner Productions as an independent production company in September 1993. Since its inception, the company claims global box office grosses of $2.9+ billion. Films produced by the company include the _Mission: Impossible_ franchise as well as _War of the Worlds_ , _The Last Samurai_ , _The Others_ and _Vanilla Sky_ , among others. In a career spanning 26 years, Cruise has received three Academy Award nominations and has won three Golden Globe awards for his performances in _Born on the Fourth of July_ , _Jerry Maguire_ and _Magnolia_. Films he’s starred in have resulted in worldwide box office totals of approximately $6 billion and his last two films, _War of the Worlds_ and _Mission: Impossible III_ , have grossed nearly $1 billion worldwide. Overall, Cruise has made 14 films that have grossed $100 million in domestic receipts, with his last seven consecutive films reaching that benchmark.

* * *

"Broadway Record-Breaker _The Producers_ Closes April 22," by Kenneth Jones, _Playbill_ , April 22, 2007  
  
The Mel Brooks-Thomas Meehan hit Broadway musical comedy _The Producers_ — like the titular Leo and Max — will walk into the sunset after the 3 PM April 22 performance.The record 12-time Tony Award-winning 2001 smashzilla closes three days after its sixth anniversary (which was April 19), following 33 preview performances and 2502 regular performances at Broadway's St. James Theatre. Director-choreographer Susan Stroman is expected to be on hand at the Sunday curtain call, as will Springbok's staged theatricals heads, Leonard Soloway, Elizabeth Williams and Anita Waxman.  
  
Mel Brooks' new musical, _Young Frankenstein_ , with a score by Mel Brooks, a book by Brooks and Thomas Meehan and direction and choreography by Susan Stroman — the team that turned _The Producers_ into gold, though now they will also be joined by Springbok Productions, themselves emerging staged musical giants — will likely play the coveted St. James Theatre next. A further announcement about the production (including dates, casting and more) is imminent.  
  
"The last six years working on this show have been pure joy for me," Brooks said in a statement. "There is not a single person who has ever been involved with this production to whom I am not gratefully indebted to for their talent, devotion and support during the run of _The Producers_. All of my Broadway experiences to date have been everything I could have hoped they would be and more." Stroman, who directed and choreographed the show, and solidified her career with it, stated, "This show is first and foremost a tribute to Broadway. I give my most heartfelt thank you to every performer, writer, designer, crew member, musician, producer and the countless others who have made this show part of theatre history. I can truly say that I have had the privilege of working with the best of Broadway. The sound of laughter is the greatest sound on earth, and I have been lucky enough to experience that sound every day for the last six years. But I consider myself luckiest for having had the chance to collaborate with the brilliant and spontaneous mind of Mel Brooks." Soloway added, "Though we did not originate the original stage run of this show, working with Mel Brooks by financing the movie, and taking charge of the regional rights is an absolute joy for us. _The Producers_ is a bona fide institution of musical theatre, and we are absolutely thrilled to be involved with it in some manner, and to fully collaborate with Mel and Susan on _Young Frankenstein_."  
  
 _The Producers_ is based on Brooks' Academy Award-winning 1968 film of the same name, and tells the story of down-on-his-luck theatrical producer, Max Bialystock, and Leo Bloom, a mousy accountant. Together they hatch the ultimate scam: raise more money than you need for a sure-fire Broadway flop and pocket the difference. Their sure-fire flop is called _Springtime for Hitler_ , and becomes an unexpected smash.  
  
The musical arrived at a time when big, delicious old-fashioned musicals — featuring bawdy jokes, burlesque-worthy drag turns and bosomy and leggy dames — seemed in danger of disappearing. A flurry of broad-strokes musical comedies ( _Hairspray_ , _The Drowsy Chaperone_ , _Dirty Rotten Scoundrels_ , _The Wedding Singer_ , _Thoroughly Modern Millie_ , _Spamalot_ ) would follow _The Producers_ , but did not match the sensation it created. Pop-culture watchers opined that _The Producers_ started a trend, shifting Broadway away from serious-minded bombastic pop operas and British spectacles of the 1980s and '90s. Following the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United States, there seemed more than ever to be an audience for escapist fare that offered a laugh and catchy melody. (To some extent, this was what happened, but it didn't quite fully emerge, ironically thanks to Springbok, who kept the Euro-pop bombast alive with the Jim Steinman rock musical _Dance of the Vampires_ , the Elton John/Bernie Taupin show _Lestat_ , Andrew Lloyd Webber's _The Woman in White_ , a film adaptation of Broadway's longest-running musical _The Phantom of the Opera_ (as well as producing future regional and touring productions of the show), and a forthcoming film version of _Sweeney Todd_. They've also hitched themselves to Disney in their continued rollout of stage versions of their beloved films.)  
  
Brooks surprised audiences and industry folk not so much with the comic intensity of the show's libretto (inspired by his Academy Award-winning screenplay) — his gift for telling a funny story was well-known – but for the craft of his songs. Penning music and lyrics (and winning the Best Score Tony Award in 2001), he created a score that recalled sumptuous, tuneful Jule Styne musicals of the 1950s and '60s. (Brooks' partner in the _Producers_ music department was Glen Kelly, the music supervisor and arranger who helped shape the author's songs into theatrical gold.)  
  
 _The Producers_ opened on April 19, 2001, to historic, unanimous rave reviews, and earned the most Tony Awards in theatre history (with 12 wins including Best Musical). The original company starred Nathan Lane as Max Bialystock, Matthew Broderick as Leo Bloom, Gary Beach as Roger de Bris, Cady Huffman as Ulla, Roger Bart as Carmen Ghia and Brad Oscar as Franz Liebkind. The current (and final) principal cast includes John Treacy Egan, Hunter Foster, Brad Musgrove, Bill Nolte, Lee Roy Reams and Angie Schworer.  
  
The day after its opening, _The Producers_ broke the record for the largest single day box-office gross in theatre history, taking in more than $3 million, and then went on to break its own record in 2003 (when Broderick and Lane's return to the show went on sale) with over $3.5 million in single day ticket sales. Two national touring companies played 74 cities throughout the United States, beginning in September 2002, and grossed over $214 million.  
  
A 2005 film version of the musical, financed (but not produced) by Springbok, was released by Universal Pictures in North America and Sony Pictures internationally during the run of the show. Stroman was replaced by Alan Parker, director of the film version of Pink Floyd's _The Wall_ and the 1996 film version of _Evita_ starring Madonna and Antonio Banderas, as well as Brooks himself (though his time was somewhat limited because of the terminal cancer of his wife, Oscar-winning actress Anne Bancroft). It starred Lane, Broderick, Bart and Beach, with Uma Thurman as Ulla and Will Ferrell as Franz. The picture was nominated for four Golden Globe Awards including Best Picture (Musical or Comedy). A new Brooks song written for the picture was nominated for a Grammy Award. A fresh 90-minute stage version of the show, produced under the auspices of Springbok, recently opened at Paris Las Vegas. Brad Oscar plays Max there and David Hasselhoff is Roger.  
  
To date, _The Producers_ has played in 12 countries around the world. Currently, there are productions running in Las Vegas, Budapest, Copenhagen, Italy, Korea, Spain, Mexico, Israel and Prague. The Los Angeles production ran at the Pantages Theatre from May 2, 2003 to January 2004, starring Jason Alexander as Max and Martin Short as Leo. Toronto production opened in December 2003 at The Canon Theatre. The London production opened in November 2004 at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane, with Lane being the original London Max (after Richard Dreyfuss bowed out) against Lee Evans as Leo. The Australian production opened at Melbourne's Princess Theatre in April 2004, and went on to play at Brisbane's Lyric Theatre and Sydney's Lyric Theatre.  
  
In addition to having a Tony-winning book, score, direction and choreography, and a Best Actor win for Nathan Lane, the show has Tony Award winning set design by Robin Wagner, Tony Award winning costume design by William Ivey Long and Tony Award winning lighting design by Peter Kaczorowski, among its record-breaking 11 Tony wins. Sound design is by Steve C. Kennedy, wig and hair design are by Paul Huntley, make-up design is by Melissa Silver, musical supervision and dance and incidental music arrangements are by the aforementioned Glen Kelly, musical direction and vocal arrangements are by Patrick S. Brady and orchestrations are by Doug Besterman. A cast album preserves the score. A film soundtrack is also in stores. _The Producers_ is produced by Rocco Landesman, The Frankel-Baruch-Viertel-Routh Group, Michael Cohl, Rick Steiner, Robert F.X. Sillerman and Mel Brooks, in association with James D. Stern and Douglas Meyer and by special arrangement with StudioCanal.

* * *

Excerpt from Q&A With Aerosmith's Joe Perry, _Guitar World_ , July 23, 2007

Q: How soon do you imagine that the first Aerosmith album with Exploitation Records will come out?  
A: It's certainly looming on the horizon, and it is good to not be under the gun in terms of a deadline, as well as not be aligned with someone very proprietary in terms of threatening to pull your guest appearances off of different projects, claiming that doing so would imperil your own album sales and whatnot. For all the money that Sony was providing us, much more than Geffen was giving us in the '80s, that deal was woefully behind the times, and it's liberating to be freed from that. That said, a lot of things depend on where Steven and I are in terms of getting in a groove together. I think he really labors specifically to write hits, and I don't like to force things out like that. Not to mention, he tends to obsess over the lyrics and take a real long time before he's finished, and the rest of us can definitely be aggravated waiting on him, especially when we have great riffs already. But, usually, the finished product tends to be worth all the labor pains.  
Q: Is there a reason your last solo album (2005's _Joe Perry_ , known for its lead single "Shakin' My Cage") wasn't slated for Exploitation Records, and you chose instead to form your own label, and create a distribution deal with Jimmy Buffett's label, Mailboat Records?  
A: To me, solo records are very intimate affairs. And I know, in my experience, that major labels either don't particularly have a lot of faith in them and drop the ball regarding promoting them, or they go to the other extreme and try to pigeonhole the work in a way that it loses sight of what it's meant to be. So I wanted to be in control of how this album was made, how it was promoted, and where it went. And say what you will about Jimmy, the man is uncannily smart in terms of marketing himself. He knows the ins and outs of the music industry, and never has to struggle. Clearly, if you are able to franchise a string of restaurants and resorts and make plenty of money that way, you must be doing something right. So, it was definitely a perfect fit for me. And it was lots of fun getting my own band together and going on the road to promote the album.  
Q: Do you have any regrets, like about during your time with Geffen in the '80s?  
A: Not in terms of our career, because that period was our rebirth, and it definitely worked out well for us. But I suppose I should've known something was up, given how David Geffen only met us once, and he apparently wasn't impressed by our resume at all. It if it had been completely up to him, I'm sure we would've been dead before we even made _Permanent Vacation_. In hindsight, there are lots of signs that I should've noticed. But then, I, and the rest of us, failed to see the signs with Tim Collins, and how, even though he worked at first in terms of restoring our career, as he continued managing us, he would play us all against each other and create drama just so he could resolve it and look like a hero. So, I guess I can't really be blamed for not seeing who Geffen was.

* * *

"Epstein Sentenced to 250 Years," by Alex Berenson, _The New York Times_ , January 2, 2008

Billionaire financier Jeffrey Epstein was sentenced to a stiff sentence of 250 years to be served at Rikers Island for almost a hundred cases of sexual assault and human trafficking today. The reclusive, Gatsby-like persona who seemed to have no presence on Wall Street but was known to party and cavort in the presence of very young women, was officially exposed during testimony in the 2006 trial of music industry mogul David Geffen, who was convicted for intrinsic and extrinsic fraud in his various business dealings, and aiding and abetting the sexual crimes of figures like Harvey Weinstein, Bill Cosby, Bryan Singer, Kevin Spacey, Gary Goddard, Lou Pearlman, Garth Ancier and the late Donald Trump, but committed suicide before he could be sentenced. Mr. Epstein's name came up numerous times in the testimony, and he was promptly arrested and indicted shortly after Geffen's trial.

Mr. Epstein was previously known as a hedge fund manager, and having a long previous relationship with the now-ailing Bear Stearns before founding his own shingle, for a long standing business relationship with Limited Brands founder and head Les Wexner, and for allowing his plane to be used to fly the likes of Mr. Spacey and President Clinton, the latter of which was briefly subject to gross but fruitless speculation of potential involvement in Mr. Epstein's crimes, on several occasions. His jet, dubbed as the "Lolita Express", was the primary means that Mr. Epstein used to transport his young female victims to places like his New York townhouse, his Arizona ranch, his Palm Beach estate, and most infamously, his private island, Little St. James, which became referred to as "Pedophile Island." His close associate, socialite Ghislane Maxwell, was his procurer of victims, and often participated directly in the depravity herself. Ms. Maxwell was successfully convinced to flip and became the star witness against Mr. Epstein, who refused to testify in his trial, held during the summer of 2007. (The trial was also technically a co-trial, as well-known lawyer Alan Dershowitz was tried alongside Epstein for the same crimes. Mr. Dershowitz has also received a stiff sentence of 99 years for his crimes.)

"We have successfully rooted out one of the worst sexual predators of all time," a spokesperson for the prosecution said. "Let Mr. Epstein be an example to those who seek to sexually violate other human beings for their own sadistic pleasure. You WILL be caught eventually."

* * *

"AOL Acquires Bebo Social Network," BBC News Website, March 13, 2008

Time Warner's AOL internet division is buying the social networking site Bebo for $850 million (£417 million) in cash. Bebo is the third-biggest social networking site in the US, behind MySpace and Facebook. AOL says that Bebo has more than 40 million members worldwide who view an average of 78 pages per day each. The price-tag is tiny when compared with the valuations of similar websites. Microsoft bought 1.6% of Facebook last year for $240 million.

Online advertising 

News Corporation bought MySpace for $580 million in 2005 but now estimates that it is worth more than $15 billion. Social networking sites are seen as a valuable location for online advertising, because members post information about themselves and can then be targeted with products and services likely to appeal to them.

The transaction comes at a time when Time Warner is considering splitting its business to part company with its AOL unit. Bebo was the world's ninth most popular social networking site in January, according to the internet statistics provider ComScore, which also ranked it as the second most visited in the UK. It was founded in California by Michael Birch, a British entrepreneur, who still owns a big stake in the business and so will make a great deal from the sale.

Alex Burmaster, European Internet Analyst for Nielsen Online, said: "It comes as no great surprise to see another traditional publisher buying in to the power of the social networking phenomenon. "Microsoft did it with Facebook, News Corp did it with MySpace so Bebo was the next logical target." He added: "Bebo has an incredibly strong brand identity, particularly with the teenage and young adult market, so it will be very interesting to see how AOL makes best use of their new youthful Trojan horse."

* * *

"Seeking Fast Deal, JPMorgan Quintuples Bear Stearns Bid," by Landon Thomas, Jr. and Eric Dash, _The New York Times_ , March 25, 2008

Confronting a crowd of furious Bear Stearns executives last week, James Dimon’s temper suddenly flared. Pounding the table, his voice rising in anger, the chief executive of JPMorgan Chase defended the $2-a-share price he had struck for Bear Stearns as well as the government’s support of the deal. Asked, finally, if he would raise his offer, Mr. Dimon’s response was typically blunt. “No,” he said. “The government is a party to all of this. I don’t think we can change a price of something like that.”

Monday, after a weekend of intense negotiations, Mr. Dimon reversed course. He agreed to pay $10 a share in stock and to purchase 95 million new shares of Bear Stearns, giving JPMorgan an immediate 39 percent stake in the collapsed brokerage firm and paving the way to a likely deal closing on April 8.

Mr. Dimon’s about-face illustrates the deep complexity and political sensitivity of a deal with participants who reached into the highest corners of Washington, from the Treasury to the Federal Reserve System. It also underscores the extent to which JPMorgan and government officials underestimated the wave of anger and opposition that would flow from irate Bear employees and shareholders who saw the original $236 million that JPMorgan agreed to pay just a week earlier as far too cheap.

And finally, the low-ball offer cast Mr. Dimon as an unscrupulous negotiator in the eyes of envious rivals, who felt no compunction in raiding Bear for its talent, with many employees only too happy to leave. The new terms, he hopes, will show him to be a more pragmatic deal maker, willing to seek compromise to save a deal that for the time being at least, brought a jolt of confidence to Wall Street.

The new deal is for $1.2 billion in stock, reflecting an increase of $1 billion from last week’s price. JPMorgan will also absorb any losses on the first billion dollars of $30 billion of Bear’s riskiest assets. Those assets will be managed independently by BlackRock. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York is guaranteeing the remaining $29 billion and in return, will reap any gains on the portfolio.

Bear’s stock was up 89 percent for the day, closing at $11.25, which is above the transaction price, a reflection of the unlikely hopes of some investors that yet another offer may emerge. JPMorgan’s shares rose a more muted 1.2 percent.

While the new offer is unlikely to fully appease Bear Stearns executives, who just over a year ago owned substantial stakes in a firm with a market value of over $20 billion, or institutional shareholders who have seen their own positions shrivel, the price is expected to result in quick shareholder approval. The alternative would be near certain bankruptcy for Bear Stearns.

“The shareholder vote is now irrelevant,” said one big investor who declined to be identified, citing the legal sensitivity.

Joseph Lewis, the Bahamas-based investor who put more than $1 billion in Bear last year and who has now lost much of that investment, has been the only large investor to speak out against the original deal. He could not be reached for comment yesterday.

Significantly, the issuance of new shares will sharply dilute the 30 percent stake owned by Bear Stearns employees, a large number of whom were likely to oppose the deal.

With the support of the Bear Stearns board, which before the arrangement owned more than 5 percent of Bear, Mr. Dimon has secured enough votes to make the April 8th closing something of a foregone conclusion.

In a brief interview on Monday, Mr. Dimon acknowledged that the initial offer could have derailed the transaction. “The price was $2, but was that even remotely fair?” Mr. Dimon asked.

With little time for due diligence and Bear Stearns’s clients fleeing the firm, Mr. Dimon believed the low price was appropriate at the time. With the deal on firmer footing, he now says the price should be higher.

The change was, in part, spurred by a desire to halt client defections and an exodus of Bear executives to rival firms. Mr. Dimon recognized that raising JPMorgan’s bid was the price of shoring up the “certainty and fairness” of the deal.

All three parties agreed to revisit the contract late last week, and by Friday, the discussions centered on a few crucial topics. In addition to raising the price, Mr. Dimon said he wanted to tighten the guarantee in the initial contract, which left JPMorgan exposed to risky Bear assets even if the deal was voted down.

Inside Bear, the deal was met mostly with a mix of resignation and defeat. While Bear executives admitted that $10 was better than $2, the new price did little to heal the raw wounds stemming from lost fortunes and the recognition that the firm would soon disappear.

Still, small pockets of defiance remained. On a conference call yesterday, James Kenny, a senior bond and derivatives trader who for a week has been predicting a price higher than $2, told colleagues that with Bear’s stock trading as high as $13, a 30 percent premium, to the amended price, the new structure was not a done deal.

“There is great upside for a sweetened deal, another suitor or some other positive shareholder event,” he said, according to a person who was on the call.

Such bursts of optimism were isolated. One Bear executive said he had been deluged with requests from people working for him, asking that they be allowed to sell their shares.

In another attempt to garner support, JPMorgan executives are planning to run the new brokerage business under the Bear Stearns name, according to a person involved in the merger. No final decision has been made, but the gesture is seen as symbolically important to Bear’s once-proud brokers who are getting other job offers.

Last week, Mr. Dimon grew increasingly concerned that many would leave. He offered certain employees cash and stock incentives to stay and made calls to his rival chief executives on Wall Street, John J. Mack at Morgan Stanley and John A. Thain at Merrill Lynch among them, asking them not to recruit Bear employees during the transition.

* * *

"DreamWorks Considers Indie Future," by Anne Thompson, _Variety_ , June 2, 2008  
  
As DreamWorks continues to seek financing for its planned reincarnation as an independent company after its ties to Paramount end later this year, two scenarios for the company’s future are emerging.  
  
One possibility is that DreamWorks will raise $500 million-$600 million in equity, as it has been negotiating with Indian conglom Reliance for the past seven months, plus another $500 million in debt from banks to finance an annual slate of four to six pics.  
  
The other option, biz insiders say, is that it will try to raise $1 billion in equity and another $1 billion in debt to bankroll a slate of eight pics per year.  
  
As of Wednesday, DreamWorks’ much buzzed-about negotiations with Reliance, while certainly far along and some of the money was even already given as an advance, were not actually completed and, indeed, may have encountered a few sticking points. Some industry observers are wondering if outgoing DreamWorks head Jeffrey Katzenberg isn’t using Reliance as a bargaining chip in yet another high-stakes studio play. Or if DreamWorks is also suffering continued ripple effects from the exposure and disgrace of the late entertainment industry mogul David Geffen, who helped found the company back in 1994.  
  
The Associated Press reported this week out of India that DreamWorks is looking to raise as much as $2 billion in equity and debt from Reliance and other sources to fund its return to indie production. The AP said Universal, which has deep ties to DreamWorks principal Steven Spielberg, was among the four or five entities in talks with DreamWorks.  
  
If it realizes the eight-picture scenario, DreamWorks may not contract with just one studio distributor. DreamWorks could allocate its pictures on a case-by-case basis via rent-a-system deals with a low distribution fee, in the manner of Marvel Entertainment or Disney-owned Lucasfilm, which produced Spielberg’s summer blockbuster _Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull._  
  
DreamWorks could arrange distribution on individual pics with both Universal and Paramount Pictures, its current home. DreamWorks has also talked with 20th Century Fox and even Disney about distribution. Par insiders say there have been no discussions yet about a future distrib relationship with DreamWorks, which has had a famously rocky relationship with Par execs since Viacom acquired DreamWorks for $1.6 billion in early 2006.  
  
Having its own financing in place would mean that its studio distrib partners would not need to advance coin to DreamWorks — such a need was a source of rancor during Joe Roth’s Revolution deal with Sony Pictures Entertainment.  
  
DreamWorks co-chair and CEO Stacey Snider is understood to be pushing for the larger-slate scenario to ensure the imprint’s status as a major player with a range of projects. A bigger bankroll would also allow Snider and DreamWorks prexy Adam Goodman to continue shepherding the pics they have developed at Paramount for the past 2½ years, including the follow up to last year’s hit Brett Ratner-directed _Transformers_. Such an arrangement would avoid a nasty custody battle with Paramount over the projects.  
  
DreamWorks had no comment on its future plans.

* * *

"Paula Wagner leaves UA," by Michael Fleming, _Variety_ , August 13, 2008  
  
Is it all about the money?  
  
Paula Wagner on Wednesday announced that she will be exiting as chief executive officer of United Artists. She will retain an ownership interest in UA.  
  
Wagner’s departure raises questions about the future of United Artists — and what will happen to the $500 million Merrill Lynch revolving fund that was allotted for UA films but that has barely been tapped.  
  
Since Wagner and Tom Cruise became co-owners of the company with MGM (being given a combined 30 percent stake), Wagner tried to greenlight movies but frequently butted heads with MGM. Harry Sloan was concentrating on his own slate, which he was developing with head of production Mary Parent, and trying to raise financing for MGM pics.  
  
MGM execs insist that Wagner could have greenlit anything she wanted but wasn’t developing aggressively enough.  
  
It’s possible the studio will once again go into hibernation and that the UA coin will go to MGM. However, one studio source insisted UA isn’t going to fold, adding that MGM couldn’t disband the division and tap its Merrill Lynch financing even if wanted to because the funds were raised specifically for UA-generated projects.  
  
MGM execs insist that Cruise will now take a stronger day-to-day role at United Artists, though he seems to be focusing on his acting. (Given Wednesday’s developments, Cruise’s satiric portrayal of a venal movie mogul in Paramount’s _Tropic Thunder_ could be interpreted as a personal exorcism of those duties.)  
  
One MGM exec insisted that UA will continue to run with Cruise at the helm, partly because his presence is crucial to Merrill Lynch’s backing of the company. The star even made a presentation to the investment bankers.  
  
For the moment chief operating officer Elliott Kleinberg, production prexy Don Granger and recently appointed MGM/UA marketing chief Michael Vollman will continue to run their departments. But in order to meet certain Merrill Lynch milestones, UA development and production needs to speed up rapidly. That suggests that an aggressive production exec will be brought in to jump-start production.  
  
Since Cruise and Wagner’s arrival at UA, the relationship between United Artists and MGM has always been wary, if not tense. And Wagner’s exit wasn’t a total surprise in the community: Rumors of a Wagner-Cruise-UA shakeup or split have been in the air for weeks, though they were flatly denied at the time by the Cruise camp and CAA. The recent exit of exec VP of production Jeff Kleeman was another warning sign.  
  
MGM has been ultra-aggressive in buying material since it was jump-started by former Universal topper Parent, even though the community is unconvinced that MGM has sufficient cash to finance the projects.  
  
MGM has two revolving credit lines through JPMorgan worth about $450 million and has been trying to raise its own funding for the 12 or so projects that Parent has put together, as well as the remakes and sequels of franchises that are in the works. The current funding won’t be enough to finance these projects, but the studio is out raising money and a spokesman expects a $500 million-$600 million credit line to close in several weeks. MGM execs would clearly welcome “sharing resources” — such as execs and physical production — with UA.  
  
Wagner’s relationship with Cruise is said to be good, though UA has never become the company that was envisioned. Indeed, Wagner’s exit ends a chapter of UA that is considered to be hugely disappointing.  
  
Wagner will concentrate on producing and will continue to work with Cruise and MGM on various films she has already developed. Among the projects she and Cruise were working on was a film version of the British TV adventure series _Champions_ that was originally developed to be directed by Guillermo del Toro.  
  
The hope was that Wagner and Cruise would restore the luster of a studio launched nearly 90 years ago by Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford and D.W. Griffith.  
  
UA has also been hampered by an inability to generate a steady stream of product. While Wagner negotiated the first interim pact with the Writers Guild earlier this year to much fanfare, production starts have been few and far between. (Though, in fairness to the company, the writers' strike slowed production and development at every company in town.)  
  
The only feature released by the revived UA so far has been October’s _Lions for Lambs_ , which earned only $63 million worldwide despite its starry cast (Cruise, Robert Redford, Meryl Streep).  
  
Last summer, Wagner and Cruise greenlit Oliver Stone’s My Lai massacre film _Pinkville_ , which had Bruce Willis attached to star. That project hit a roadblock due to script problems, as well rumblings that Stone may find himself toppled by sexual misconduct allegations, though nothing has surfaced so far. This, along with the fact that the unreconstructed "ultra-liberal" Stone has found his credit diminished in recent years, didn't help, so the project has been dropped.  
  
Wagner will likely depart the company without coming forward with another film for UA. She and Cruise had also been looking into a film about the most famous assassination attempt on Hitler, the so-called "Operation Valkyrie", but have been unable to secure a director to bring it to fruition. Before he was exposed, Bryan Singer was supposedly in the running for this project.  
  
And Cruise will star in a film for Spyglass. They are circling each other on _The Tourist_ , the Bharat Nalluri-directed remake of the 2005 French thriller _Anthony Zimmer_. It’s another signal that Cruise is concentrating on his acting career and that studio moguldom is not as rewarding as he perhaps once thought.  
  
Wagner’s decision comes on the heels of a decision by her husband, Rick Nicita, to end his long career as a CAA agent to become co-chairman and co-CEO of Morgan Creek Productions.  
  
Most recently, Wagner produced _The Eye_ , starring Jessica Alba, for Lionsgate and _Death Race,_ which is being released by Universal on Aug. 22.  
  
In a statement, Wagner was diplomatic about her exit.  
  
“I’ve truly relished working with my longtime partner Tom Cruise to revitalize United Artists, and I am proud of all that we’ve accomplished in the past two years, reinvigorating the brand and developing such a strong slate of films,” she said. “But I always tell my sons, ‘Follow your passion’ — and I’ve got to follow that advice myself. As much as I’ve enjoyed my time as an executive, I have longed to return to my true love, which is making movies, so that’s what I’ve decided to do. I still believe in our vision for UA, and I am confident that Harry Sloan and our colleagues at MGM will see that vision through to reality.”

* * *

"Mel Gibson Lets Go of the Steering Wheel," by Gary Maddox, _The Sydney Morning Herald_ , September 10, 2008  
  
The Hollywood star Mel Gibson and his business partner, Bruce Davey, have sold their sales and film distribution businesses in Britain, and the sales arm of Australia. The sale, to the British film executive Stewart Till, has them continuing in film production from Los Angeles, and retaining the distribution business and the Dendy cinema chain here.  
  
A former chief executive of PolyGram Filmed Entertainment and United International Pictures, Mr. Till aims to build an international distribution network outside the Hollywood studio system. His company, Stadium Entertainment, picked up the international sales and distribution operations of Icon Group for an undisclosed sum. The deal includes the Majestic film and television library, which includes the Oscar winners _Driving Miss Daisy_ and _Dances With Wolves_.  
  
Icon has become a leading independent distributor in Australia in recent years. Its hits include Gibson's _The Passion Of The Christ_ and the surprise British hit _Death At A Funeral_. Gibson and Mr. Davey, the Sydney accountant who has been the star's business partner since the late 1980s, became more influential in February when they bought the Dendy art-house cinema chain and distribution business from the regional broadcaster Prime Media Group for $21 million.That deal, in which Icon beat bids from cinema industry rivals Reading, Palace and Pacific Equity Partners, gave the pair screens at East Circular Quay, Newtown, Byron Bay and Canberra, and two venues in Brisbane.  
  
Mr. Till appears to have seen Icon as a first step in an ambitious plan for a new international operation to rival the one he ran at PolyGram Filmed Entertainment before it was sold to Seagram in 1998. Mr. Till and Mr. Davey said Icon Productions was not part of the deal and would continue to operate as a standalone company. "Following the acquisition, the new company will trade as Icon and will have a first-look deal with Icon Productions to handle the international rights to its productions," they said in a joint statement.  
  
Contacted at the Toronto International Film Festival, the chief executive of the Icon Group, Mark Gooder, said Gibson and Mr. Davey were also retaining the Dendy cinemas. The trade newspaper _Variety_ has reported that Mr. Till is now looking to build or acquire distribution outlets in France, Italy, Germany, Spain and Russia in the next 12 to 18 months. Within the cinema business, there is skepticism about his plans to challenge the dominance of the Hollywood studios. "The studio system has remained the same for a hundred years," an executive said. "It's a very big task to become the seventh major."

* * *

"Lehman folds with record $613 billion debt," by Sam Mamudi, _MarketWatch_ , September 15, 2008

Lehman Brothers Holdings is closing its doors with more than $600 billion of debt -- the biggest bankruptcy in U.S. history. L ehman has total debts of $613 billion against total assets of $639 billion, according to a filing prepared Sunday. T he previous largest bankruptcy was that of WorldCom Inc. in July 2002, which had $104 billion of assets.

The Chapter 11 Petition filing with the Bankruptcy Court of the Southern District of New York shows that Lehman has more than 100,000 creditors and more than $150 billion in outstanding bond debt.

"In the judgment of the Board, it is desirable and in the best interests of the Company, its creditors, employees, and other interested parties that a petition be filed by the Company seeking relief under the provisions of Chapter 11 of [the bankruptcy code]," said the filing, effectively ending Lehman's 158-year existence.

The filing also names Lehman's three largest stockholders: AXA, ClearBridge Advisors and FMR, parent of Fidelity Investments. AXA holds 7.3% of outstanding common stock, while ClearBridge holds 6.3% and FMR holds 5.9%. As of 8:45 AM, shares of Lehman were down to 33 cents in pre-market trading; the stock closed just below $13 on Monday September 8.

The largest listed claimants of Lehman's debt were Citigroup Inc. and Bank of New York Mellon Corp., which were the indentured trustees of about $138 billion of Lehman's senior notes. That exposure is not directly with the banks - as indentured trustees they were the agents for the Lehman bonds.

Bank of New York was also listed as the second- and third-largest creditor, with separate claims of $12 billion of subordinated debt and $5 billion of junior subordinated debt - again, in its role as indentured trustee. The next largest creditors are Japanese banks Aozora and Mizuho Corporate Bank, a unit of Mizuho Financial Group Inc.

New York corporate law firm Weil Gotshal & Manges is handling the bankruptcy.

* * *

"DreamWorks, India's Reliance sign major deal: reports", AP, September 21, 2008  
  
India's Reliance-ADA Group and Steven Spielberg's DreamWorks studio have signed a deal that will boost Bollywood's presence in the US film industry, a report said on Sunday.The two companies will make six to eight films a year for the next six years under the $1.5 billion deal, The _Times of India_ said, quoting an unnamed Reliance executive. Reliance officials were not immediately available for comment.  
  
A deal with Spielberg -- the highest-grossing film director ever -- would raise Mumbai-based Reliance-ADA's growing global profile in the entertainment industry. It would also give Spielberg a financial boost in his efforts to secure DreamWorks' exit from Viacom Inc's Paramount Pictures and make it a company that again owns the films it makes.  
  
There has been widespread speculation that the two companies were working on a deal. Paramount Pictures this week congratulated Spielberg and his DreamWorks colleagues on their "newest venture" -- even though no announcement had been made.  
  
US reports have said Spielberg aims to raise more than one billion dollars in third-party financing to reinvent DreamWorks as a separate company. DreamWorks, which could not be reached for comment, makes live action films, such as _Transformers_ and _Saving Private Ryan_ , and animated movies such as _Shrek_ and its latest hit, _Kung Fu Panda_. In May, Reliance-ADA's entertainment arm, Reliance Big Entertainment, said it had signed deals with the production houses of Hollywood stars including Brad Pitt and George Clooney to make movies worth about a billion dollars over two years.

* * *

"Tough Deal to Come For Spielberg," by Carl DiOrio and Jay A. Fernandez, _The Hollywood R_ _eporter_ , September 21, 2008 _  
_  
Steven Spielberg finally has his rupees, but now comes the tricky bit. Having wrapped up negotiations with India's Reliance Big Entertainment, Spielberg and other DreamWorks brass begin potentially complicated discussions with Paramount over exit terms.  
  
Reliance will provide $550 million in equity funding and JPMorgan Securities will lead a $500 million-$700 million bank syndication to reconstitute DreamWorks as a private company separate from Paramount. Team Spielberg hopes to get a first wholly DreamWorks-produced project into production by September 2009, but DreamWorks executives also are expected to negotiate for the right to take one or more development projects with them.  
  
Other pending issues include the matter of who will distribute films produced by the new DreamWorks. Paramount could maintain a distributor relationship with the new company, but it is far more likely that Spielberg and DreamWorks CEO Stacey Snider will ink a deal with Universal, where they have maintained offices even while Paramount employees. Fox and Disney also are possible distribution partners. DreamWorks execs have been happy enough with the marketing and distribution of their films at Paramount, but relations with corporate execs at Paramount and parent Viacom have been difficult.  
  
Complicating exit talks with Paramount, the Melrose studio intends to make Spielberg pay for the right to take with him any of the film projects developed by DreamWorks execs at the studio. He could participate as a producer on such films in any event, but they would be released as Paramount films barring a mutually acceptable monetary settlement, a top Paramount exec said. Meantime, Paramount has offered to fund Spielberg's Paramount-based passion project _Tintin_ entirely, following the collapse of talks with Universal to co-finance the motion-capture production. The offer is contingent on the $130 million project being produced under unspecified financial terms, which Spielberg might or might not accept.  
  
In a statement issued Friday, Paramount lauded the DreamWorks duo. "We congratulate Steven and Stacey, and wish them well as they start their newest venture," the studio said. "Steven is one of the world's great storytellers and a legend in the motion picture business. It has been an honor working closely with him and the DreamWorks team over the last three years, and we expect to continue our successful collaboration with Steven in the future." Indeed, a high-profile DreamWorks/Paramount project -- _Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen_ \-- is being lensed.  
  
Several DreamWorks execs have been expected to follow the corporate brass in exiting the studio, but Paramount is allowing the label's entire work force of 150 or so to depart. The DreamWorks duo had exit clauses in their respective contracts allowing them to leave by year's end, but others needed Paramount permission.  
  
"To facilitate a timely and smooth transition, Paramount has waived certain provisions from the original deal to clear the way for the DreamWorks principals and their employees to join their new company without delay," the studio said.  
  
DreamWorks and Reliance reps shook hands on final deal terms Thursday night, then advised Paramount of the developments while paperwork was distributed and signed by deal participants Friday. It's expected that Spielberg and Snider will take most of the DreamWorks work force with them. It's unclear if anyone not landing a DreamWorks job will be given a position at Paramount. Snider will assume an even greater lead position and company equity. Spielberg and Snider had been obligated to continue working for Paramount until at least Oct. 31. But Paramount has waived the provision and cleared the way for their immediate departure.  
  
Technically, rights to the DreamWorks name reside with the separate, publicly traded DreamWorks Animation. But Spielberg will have no problem securing use of the name for his new company from DWA topper Jeffrey Katzenberg, onetime principal in the original DreamWorks SKG. Paramount retains the right to distribute the 59-title library acquired in its DreamWorks acquisition. But it sold a controlling interest in those library assets to Soros Group and Dune Capital for $900 million in May 2006.  
  
The film and TV arm of Mumbai-based business magnate Anil Ambani's Reliance ADA, Reliance Big Entertainment began negotiating with Spielberg reps in June and a deal essentially was struck weeks ago. Spielberg and Snider flew to New York just after Labor Day to meet with Ambani for an effective deal clincher, but lawyers continued to put finishing touches on the agreement while the DreamWorks team mulled how to time its formal Paramount exit.  
  
Reliance Big Entertainment has struck a string of production partnerships in Hollywood during the past year, but the Spielberg venture is by far the flashiest -- and priciest -- to date, netting the Asian comer a 50% DreamWorks stake. Reliance was advised in its negotiations by a film-consulting division of JPMorgan, with Los Angeles attorney Schuyler Moore leading the Indian team in negotiations. Los Angeles attorney Skip Brittenham crafted DreamWorks' new business plan.  
  
DreamWorks aims to produce at least six films a year. There's speculation that its executive staff will be trimmed, and the scope of operations will depend in part on the size of the bank syndication JPMorgan pulls together. The firm is expected to deliver a loan package of at least $500 million without too much difficulty, despite the tight credit market. But reaching the $700 million goal DreamWorks is seeking could require RBE's convincing nontraditional entertainment lenders from the Asian banking community to participate. The bank financing will take up to 90 days to complete, but Spielberg and Snider are expected to move quickly to form a production team. Current top execs include production president Adam Goodman and executive VP Holly Bario.  
  
DreamWorks is likely to continue relationships with outside producers including Montecito Picture Co., Red Hour Films, Springbok Productions and Parkes/MacDonald Prods. Tom Pollack and Ivan Reitman's Montecito has produced DreamWorks/Paramount films including _Disturbia_ and the upcoming _Hotel for Dogs_ and _I Love You, Man;_ Ben Stiller's Red Hour-delivered _Blades of Glory_ ; Springbok worked with DreamWorks for _Memoirs of a Geisha_ (with Columbia Pictures) and _Sweeney Todd_ (with Warner Bros.). Former DreamWorks production toppers Walter Parkes and Laurie MacDonald have continued as de facto studio execs, handling prestige productions like _Sweeney Todd._ Their projects include _The Trial of the Chicago 7_ with Paul Greengrass attached to direct.  
  
Paramount, which closed on its $1.6 billion acquisition of DreamWorks in February 2006, said the loss of the DreamWorks creative talent won't crimp its production pipeline. "The acquisition of DreamWorks has been beneficial both creatively and financially for Paramount and accelerated our strategy of focusing on our world-class franchises and brands," the studio said. "It gave us a solid slate of films to fill out our lineup, a valuable catalog we were able to monetize and a development pipeline that will bear fruit for us for years to come. The acquisition jump-started our rebuilding plans, which are now well under way."  
  
Paramount has two summer tentpoles - _Star Trek_ and _G.I. Joe_ \- in the can, plus the Eddie Murphy starrer _Nowhereland_ and Martin Scorsese's _Shutter Island._ Further down the road, a Marvel-produced _Iron Man_ sequel is in the works, as well as animated feature _Rango_ from Gore Verbinski and Johnny Depp.  
  
The loss of DreamWorks should help several projects get increased traction. David Fincher has projects including _Torso_ , _The Killer_ and _Black Hole_ ; while J.J. Abrams has _Morning Glory_ and _Little Darlings_. Elsewhere, Misher Films is readying _Swingles_ , and _Sopranos_ capo David Chase has a deal to write, direct and produce a Paramount drama. Among franchise projects, a stalled reboot of Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan franchise might get new juice and a _Dune_ remake is planned with Peter Berg directing. _Beverly Hills Cop IV_ , with Brett Ratner at the helm, is tagged for a summer 2010 release.

* * *

"Investors remain amazed over Madoff's sudden downfall," by David Lieberman, Pallavi Golgoi, Theresa Howard and Kevin McCoy, _USA Today_ , December 14, 2008

The financial world begins this week still in a daze over the spectacular collapse of an alleged Ponzi scheme by onetime Wall Street legend Bernard Madoff — possibly the biggest swindle ever committed by a single person. It's "a stunning fraud that appears to be of epic proportions," Andrew Calamari of the Securities and Exchange Commission's New York Regional Office said in a statement after the FBI arrested Madoff last week.

It's unclear how many institutions and individuals will suffer from losses that federal authorities say Madoff privately pegged at $50 billion. The repercussions could affect the entire investment industry if lawmakers decide they must try to prevent additional losses on such a massive scale. "It's a good thing, because cases like Madoff will lead to tighter and more oversight," says Roland Eberhard, who oversees $500 million in investments for Basel Asset Management.

Officials allege that Madoff falsified reports from a secretive money management service that he owned — run separately from his main stock transaction firm — to make it appear to be more successful than it was. Madoff allegedly kept it going by taking cash from unwitting new investors to pay customers who wanted to redeem their holdings.

In a January SEC filing, Madoff said he managed $17.1 billion in assets for 23 clients. But potential victims could number in the hundreds and possibly thousands and include major banks, hedge funds, charities and pension funds. Responding to an SEC lawsuit, on Friday, U.S. District Judge Louis Stanton in New York froze the assets and accounts of Madoff's investment business and appointed Lee Richards, an attorney at Richards Kibbe & Orbe, as receiver. Madoff's lawyers have denied the charges but did not return calls for comment. Madoff was released after posting $10 million in bail. He faces up to $5 million in fines and up to 20 years in jail if convicted. The SEC and U.S. Attorney's office say their investigation is continuing and declined to comment.

For now, many are amazed at the abrupt collapse of a financier considered so innovative and successful that wealthy individuals and blue-chip firms sought his investment services and advice.

A Hofstra Law School graduate who started his career with $5000 saved working as a lifeguard, Madoff spent 48 years cultivating a reputation as a pioneer of electronic trading and the development of the NASDAQ Stock Market. He was its chairman in the early 1990s and served on the boards of the National Association of Securities Dealers and the Securities Industry Association. He's "considered a statesmen in our industry," says Marianne Brown, CEO of Omgeo, a firm that helps to affirm trades. Madoff's tightly run firm — which treats employees and their families to a weekend outing each year at his oceanfront home in Montauk, New York, the easternmost point of Long Island — was the sixth-largest market maker for Standard & Poor's 500 stocks this year through October, executing trades on $1.86 billion of shares, SEC data show. Madoff also is credited with creating a vibrant market for small investors by helping lower the cost of trading, which led to firms such as E-Trade, Ameritrade and Charles Schwab in the 1990s.

Homes in New York and Florida

He lived well. He has an expansive prewar co-op on Manhattan's Upper East Side, real estate records show. An apartment similar in size to his unit sold for more than $5.7 million in 2006. In addition to his Long Island home, he has a waterfront home in Palm Beach and a 55-foot yacht there named _Bull_ , Florida records show. He was politically active, donating $25,000 a year to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee as well as recent races by New York Sens. Charles Schumer and Hillary Clinton and New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine. Madoff has also been an active donor — through the Ruth and Bernard Madoff Foundation — to New York philanthropies including The Doe Fund and Girls Inc. Many were stunned that someone so prominent could commit such a massive alleged fraud. "It's like you find out the Tooth Fairy died," says Robert Battalio, professor of trading at University of Notre Dame's Mendoza College of Business.

The end came after Wednesday when, according to the SEC complaint, Madoff told two unnamed senior employees that his fund was "all just one big lie" and "finished" with "absolutely nothing." Madoff allegedly said that he still had as much as $200 million that he wanted to distribute to family, friends and employees— for example, paying bonuses two months early — before he turned himself in. The employees alerted authorities. His arrest was "a shocking development," Fairfield Greenwich Group, a firm that directs investors to hedge funds, said on its website. It added that it's "working with counsel to assess the situation and take all steps necessary and appropriate to protect our investors and the firm."

But others were skeptical. "Bernie's results were just too unbelievable," says David Henry, an executive of a private company that invests in hedge funds. "He rarely had any negative results. It didn't make sense. He had regular returns of about 10% for years. It was like finding the Holy Grail." Madoff said much of his success was due to a strategy called "split strike conversion" that used a combination of stock options to enhance the upside and limit the downside of a basket of stocks. But Jeremy Bach, a Philadelphia-based consultant who helps investors evaluate fund managers, says he helped conduct a 2005 analysis of Madoff's results. "We were not able to identify a single factor that was driving the returns," says Bach.

Michael Ocrant wrote a story in 2001 for _MARHedge_ , which covers the hedge fund industry, about how some traders, money managers and financial consultants questioned Madoff's record of 72 winning months in a row. "When I spoke to them about something not being right … they were adamant — there's no way this could be real," says Ocrant, now at _Institutional Investor._ "There's no one in history with that kind of results." He says Madoff smoothly dismissed the questions when he interviewed him at the time. "You could see why people would trust him, particularly since he'd been running a successful business for years."

Routine regulator questions

Regulators' questions were fairly routine and centered only on the broker-dealer business. The SEC completed an examination in 2005 that resulted in three violations of "best execution" rules. The SEC also completed an investigation in 2007 that did not include any referral for enforcement action. The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority took five disciplinary actions against the firm since 1975, according to filings, the most recent on August 27, when it accused the firm of not reporting accurate trading information. The firm was fined $25,000 and didn't admit or deny the findings of the action.

But it was the other part of Madoff's firm — the advisory investment management unit — that was at the heart of the alleged scandal. And there was little oversight of that business until September 12, 2006, when it was registered with the SEC. Investors didn't seem to care. Marketers of investment funds told potential clients that part of their money would be put under Madoff's care if they invested in four relatively unknown funds.

"Madoff was the carrot to get people in other funds," says Jon Najarian of option trading research firm OptionMonster. Meanwhile, current investors with Madoff were nervous to pull their money out, fearing they wouldn't be able to get back in later. The stickiness of investor funds gave Madoff a pool of cash to play with until the redemptions hit amid the credit crunch. "He was a brilliant marketer in an evil way," Najarian says.

It all started to unravel, according to the SEC complaint, in the first week of December when investors asked for $7 billion in redemptions. That was the one variable Madoff couldn't mitigate. The alleged Ponzi scheme lasted so long and became so huge because of Madoff's sterling reputation, says Barry Minkow, co-founder of the Fraud Discovery Institute, who served time in prison after defrauding investors as founder of ZZZZ Best. "It's always the last person you'd expect."

Possible Victims May Reach In the Thousands

The roster of potential victims in what prosecutors allege was a $50 billion Ponzi scheme has grown exponentially longer in the past few days. Madoff, 70, said in regulatory filings that he only had 23 clients, but the list of people who lost money may number in the hundreds or even thousands. Among those acknowledging potential losses so far: former Philadelphia Eagles owner Norman Braman, New York Mets owner Fred Wilpon and J. Ezra Merkin, the chairman of GMAC Financial Services.

A charity in Massachusetts that supports Jewish programs, the Robert I. Lappin Charitable Foundation, said it had invested its $8 million endowment with Madoff and doesn't expect to survive. Others that fear they have lost millions include the North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System and the Texas-based Julian J. Levitt Foundation.

Banks, hedge funds and other investment groups looked like big losers, too. The Fairfield Greenwich Group said it had some $7.5 billion in investments linked to Madoff. A private Swiss bank, Banque Benedict Hentsch Fairfield Partners, said it had $47.5 million in client assets at risk. Reuters reported that Santander, Spain's largest bank, has nearly $3.1 billion of its clients' money exposed to Madoff's funds.

The losses may have extended far beyond the coffers of the wealthy and powerful. The town of Fairfield, Connecticut, said it put nearly 15% of its retiree pension fund with Madoff and was scrambling to determine how much of the $42 million remained. Harry Susman, a Houston attorney, said he represents a group of clients who had unknowingly become entangled in the scandal by investing in a hedge fund managed by GMAC's Merkin, which put almost all of its $1.8 billion in Madoff's hands. "They had no idea they had exposure," he said.

* * *

“Could SEC Have Stopped Madoff Scam In 1992?” by Liz Moyer, _Forbes_ , December 23, 2008  
  
In the unfolding tale of Bernard Madoff's alleged $50 billion Ponzi scheme, feeder firms have grabbed much of the focus. They get their name because they marketed the funds that held the assets ultimately managed by Madoff. Lawsuits are filling the courthouses as burned investors attempt to recoup at least some of their losses from the firms. Last week New York Law School sued Ascot Partners, run by GMAC Financial Services Chairman Ezra Merkin, for losing $3 million of its money to Madoff. Other Ascot investors, including Mort Zuckerman, are expected to follow. Ascot reportedly steered $1.8 billion of client money to Madoff. Fairfield Greenwich Group and Tremont Capital have taken the brunt of the scrutiny. Tremont had $3.3 billion invested with Madoff through various funds. Fairfield, a hedge fund run by Walter Noel, is the target of a lawsuit by investors, who claim it failed to protect their assets while collecting millions of dollars in fees. The suit says the firm failed to conduct "even a minimum level" of due diligence, breached fiduciary duty and was negligent and unjustly enriched.  
  
But ironically, the Securities and Exchange Commission might have unearthed Madoff's massive scheme in 1992 through its scrutiny of a feeder fund back then. In late 1992, the agency filed suit against a Florida investment firm, Avellino & Bienes, accusing it of selling $440 million of unregistered securities to 3200 investors. Avellino & Bienes funneled the investments to a single manager and promised clients a curiously steady 13.5%-20% annual return, the SEC said at the time, but the scrutiny didn't go any deeper. The Avellino firm was shut down in 1993, and the money was tracked down and returned to investors.  
  
Turns out, Madoff was the sole manager who took in the Avellino & Bienes money. In a December 1992 interview with _The Wall Street Journal_ , Madoff himself explained he didn't know the funds had been raised illegally and added that his performance tracked the 10-year performance of the Standard & Poor's 500, hardly notable. The relationship between Frank Avellino, Michael Bienes and Madoff had grown so lucrative that, according to the _Journal_ article, Avellino and Bienes abandoned their accounting business in 1984 to focus on investments full time, a fact that also got them in trouble with the SEC, which accused them of running an unregistered investment company. According to the SEC complaint against Avellino & Bienes, their infractions dated back to 1962. Madoff founded his firm, Bernard Madoff Investment Securities, in 1960. In another interesting coincidence, their lawyer, Ira Lee Sorkin, is currently representing Madoff.  
  
In the _Journal's_ 1992 interview with Madoff, there is a description of his investment strategy that seems all too eerie today, in light of the charges against him. In the 1970s, investors were put into convertible arbitrage positions in large-cap stocks, with promised investment returns of 18% to 20%. In 1982, the investment strategy changed to include greater use of stock index futures. Madoff claimed he was in stock market index puts (a type of option contract) on the day the market crashed in 1987.  
  
Now regulators say Madoff kept several sets of books and probably cooked the numbers he gave investors to maintain the illusion of consistent returns. He may not have invested much at all, despite having a vague strategy involving buying blue chip stocks and hedging them in the options markets. A $7 billion tsunami of redemptions this year is probably what drove his scheme to the brink. Ponzi schemes, in which early investors are paid using money from new investors, only work when fresh money is coming in. Last week, SEC Chairman Christopher Cox acknowledged that the agency missed several warning signs. "I am gravely concerned by the apparent multiple failures over at least a decade to thoroughly investigate these allegations or at any point to seek formal authority to pursue them."

* * *

"The Talented Mr. Madoff," by Julie Creswell and Landon Thomas, Jr., _The New York Times_ , January 24, 2009  
  
To some, Bernard L. Madoff was an affable, charismatic man who moved comfortably among power brokers on Wall Street and in Washington, a winning financier who had all the toys: the penthouse apartment in Manhattan, the shares in two private jets, the yacht moored off the French Riviera. Although hardly a household name, he secured a longstanding role as an elder statesman on Wall Street, allowing him to land on important boards and commissions where his opinions helped shape securities regulations. Along the way, he snared a coveted spot as the chairman of a major stock exchange, NASDAQ. And his employees say he treated them like family.  
  
There was, of course, another side to Mr. Madoff, who is 70. Reclusive, at times standoffish and aloof, this Bernie rarely rubbed elbows in Manhattan’s cocktail circuit or at Palm Beach balls. This Bernie was quiet, controlled and closely attuned to his image, down to the most minute details. He was, for instance, an avid collector of vintage watches and took time each morning to match his wedding ring — he owned at least two — to the platinum or gold watch band he was wearing that day. Per his directives, the décor in his firm’s New York and London offices was stark. Black, white and gray — or “icily cold modern,” as one frequent visitor to the New York operation described it. Despite nurturing a familial atmosphere in his offices, he installed two cameras on the small trading floor of the firm’s London operations so he could monitor the unit remotely from New York.  
  
This Bernie also ran a money management business on the side for decades that he kept hidden far from colleagues, competitors and regulators. While he managed billions of dollars for individuals and foundations, he shunned one-on-one meetings with most of his investors, wrapping himself in an Oz-like aura, making him even more desirable to those seeking access.  
  
So who was the real Bernie Madoff? And what could have driven him to choreograph a $50 billion Ponzi scheme, to which he is said to have confessed?  
  
An easy answer is that Mr. Madoff was a charlatan of epic proportions, a greedy manipulator so hungry to accumulate wealth that he did not care whom he hurt to get what he wanted. But some analysts say that a more complex and layered observation of his actions involves linking the world of white-collar finance to the world of serial criminals. They wonder whether good old Bernie Madoff might have stolen simply for the fun of it, exploiting every relationship in his life for decades while studiously manipulating financial regulators.  
  
“Some of the characteristics you see in psychopaths are lying, manipulation, the ability to deceive, feelings of grandiosity and callousness toward their victims,” says Gregg O. McCrary, a former special agent with the FBI who spent years constructing criminal behavioral profiles. Mr. McCrary cautions that he has never met Mr. Madoff, so he can’t make a diagnosis, but he says Mr. Madoff appears to share many of the destructive traits typically seen in a psychopath. That is why, he says, so many who came into contact with Mr. Madoff have been left reeling and in confusion about his motives.  
  
“People like him become sort of like chameleons. They are very good at impression management,” Mr. McCrary says. “They manage the impression you receive of them. They know what people want, and they give it to them.”  
  
As investigators plow through decades of documents, trying to decipher whether Mr. Madoff was engaged in anything other than an elaborate financial ruse, his friends remain dumbfounded — and feel deeply violated. “He was a hero to us. The head of NASDAQ. We were proud of everything he had accomplished,” says Diana Goldberg, who once shared the 27-minute train ride with Mr. Madoff from their homes in Laurelton, Queens, to classes at Far Rockaway High School. “Now, the hero has vanished.”  
  
If, in the end, Mr. Madoff is found to have been engaging in fraud for most of his career, then the hero never really existed. Authorities say Mr. Madoff himself has confessed that he was the author of a longstanding and wide-ranging financial charade. His lawyer, Ira Lee Sorkin, declined to comment.  
  
During the decades that Mr. Madoff built his business, he cast himself as a crusader, protecting the interests of smaller investors and bent on changing the way securities trading was done on Wall Street. To that end, like a burglar who knows the patrol routes of the police and can listen in on their radio scanners, he also actively wooed regulators who monitored his business. “He once mentioned to me that he spent one-third of his time in Washington in the early 1990s, late 1980s,” says a person who has known Mr. Madoff for years but requested not to be identified because he does not want to be drawn into continuing litigation. “He was very involved with regulators. I think they used him as a sounding board and he looked to them like a white knight.” “He was smart in understanding very early on that the more involved you were with regulators, you could shape regulation,” this individual adds. “But, if we find out that the Ponzi scheme goes back that far, then he was doing something much smarter. If you’re very close with regulators, they’re not going be looking over your shoulders that much. Very smart.”  
  
Mr. Madoff spent his early years in Laurelton, a close-knit, Jewish enclave where he and his friends ate ice cream at the local five-and-ten and attended activities at the community center. “It was an idyllic place to grow up in,” recalls Vera Gitten, who attended elementary school with him. She remembers him as “very thin,” a good student and extremely outgoing. She recalls a musical skit that he and his best friend wrote, rehearsed and performed for the class when they were in fifth or sixth grade. “It was a broad company, sort of a ‘Sheik of Araby’ kind of thing where they wore costumes, which were their parents’ bedsheets, that made them look like they were desert sheiks,” Ms. Gitten says. “They would have us rolling.”  
  
None of Mr. Madoff’s former elementary school friends could recall what his parents, Ralph and Sylvia, did for a living. According to Securities and Exchange Commission documents from the 1960s, it appears that his mother had a brokerage firm called Gibraltar Securities registered in her name with an address in Laurelton.  
  
In 1963, the SEC began investigating whether a number of firms, including Ms. Madoff’s, had failed to file financial reports and whether that required revoking their registrations. Early the next year, Ms. Madoff withdrew her registration and the SEC dropped its proceedings against her.  
  
While Mr. Madoff’s friends remember little about his parents, they all clearly recall his childhood sweetheart, and future wife, Ruth Alpern, a pretty, bubbly blonde who was voted “Josie College” by her Far Rockaway High School class.  
  
Mr. Madoff, after graduating from high school in 1956, spent a year at the University of Alabama, where he joined Sigma Alpha Mu, a Jewish fraternity. A year later, he transferred to Hofstra University, where he graduated in 1960 with a degree in political science. He later became a Hofstra trustee, but the university never invested with him.  
  
Mr. Madoff spent the next year at Brooklyn Law School, attending classes in the morning and running his side business — installing and fixing sprinkler systems — in the afternoon and evening, recalled Joseph Kavanau, who attended law school with Mr. Madoff. When Mr. Kavanau married his wife, Jane, who was Mrs. Madoff’s best friend from Queens, Mr. Madoff was the best man. “Bernie was very industrious,” Mr. Kavanau explains. “He was going to school and working at the same time.” Mr. Madoff was never interested in practicing law, Mr. Kavanau says. Instead, Mr. Madoff left law school and, using $5000 saved from being a lifeguard and from his sprinkler business, joined the ranks of Wall Street in the 1960s.  
  
“For many years when we were first married, my wife and I would go to their house or we would all go out to dinner, maybe a couple of nights a month,” said Mr. Kavanau, who says that the first home Mr. Madoff shared with his bride was a modest, one-bedroom apartment in Bayside, Queens.  
  
Over the years, however, the two couples drifted apart. From time to time, Mr. Kavanau said he turned on the television and caught a glimpse of Mr. Madoff — now a successful financier — being interviewed, realizing that he had made his mark on Wall Street. “The last time I saw him, we had run into him and Ruth on Worth Avenue in Palm Beach,” Mr. Kavanau recalls. “We were definitely aware of how well he was living.” When asked if he can understand what happened, what may have motivated or prompted Mr. Madoff to eventually take such risks after building up a seemingly successful business, Mr. Kavanau paused. “There is no way to. I can’t make it add up. It doesn’t make sense,” he says, growing increasingly frustrated. “I cannot take the Bernie I knew and turn him into the Bernie we’re hearing about 24/7. It doesn’t compute.”  
  
When Mr. Madoff arrived on Wall Street in the 1960s, he was an outsider. His small firm, Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities, got its start by matching buyers of inexpensive “penny stocks” with sellers in the growing over-the-counter market. This hardscrabble market was made up of stocks that were not listed on the tonier New York Stock Exchange or American Stock Exchange.  
  
In the OTC market, it was common practice — and completely legal — for firms like Mr. Madoff’s to try to attract big trades to their shop by offering to pay clients a penny or two for every share they traded. His firm would make money by pocketing the difference in the “spread,” or the gap between the offering and selling price for the stocks. During the mid-1970s, when changes in the rules allowed his firm and others like it to trade more expensive and more prestigious blue-chip stocks, Mr. Madoff began gaining market share from the Big Board. “He was a man with a good idea who was also a terrific salesman,” says Charles V. Doherty, the former president of the Midwest Stock Exchange. “He was ahead of everyone.”  
  
While completely legitimate, the practice of paying for trading orders was entirely distasteful to blue bloods on the established exchanges who saw the actions, ultimately, as a threat to their livelihood. Around this time, Mr. Madoff began cultivating key relationships with regulators. “He was the darling of the regulators, without question. He was doing everything the regulators wanted him to do,” says Nicholas A. Giordano, the former president of the Philadelphia Stock Exchange. “They wanted him to be a fierce competitor to the New York Stock Exchange, and he was doing it.”  
  
Current and former SEC regulators have come under fire, accused of failing to adequately supervise Mr. Madoff and being too cozy with him. Arthur Levitt Jr., who served as SEC chairman from 1993 to early 2001 (and who tried to sound the warning about accounting fraud prior to Enron and WorldCom), has acknowledged that he occasionally turned to Mr. Madoff for advice about how the market functioned. But Mr. Levitt strongly denies that Mr. Madoff had undue influence at the SEC or that the agency’s enforcement staff deferred to him. Mr. Levitt said that he was unaware that Mr. Madoff even ran an investment management business, and that Mr. Madoff never had special access to him or other SEC officials. He also noted that he and Mr. Madoff opposed one another on several key industry issues. “The notion that Madoff came to my office many times is a fiction,” Mr. Levitt says. “And the notion that he did my bidding is so fantastic that it defies belief.”  
  
Mr. Madoff’s firm was an early adopter of new trading technologies. And, during the early 1990s, he served three one-year stints as head of the NASDAQ, an electronic exchange that has competed vigorously and won market share from brick-and-mortar exchanges like the Big Board.  
  
Despite this flair for the experimental, Mr. Madoff routinely told his employees to adopt the mantra “KISS,” or “keep it simple, stupid.” He was, after all, a man of precise and controlled habits. He smoked Davidoff cigars and, in London, tailored his suits at Kilgour on Savile Row and bought many of his watches at Somlo Antiques.  
  
Associates and others acquainted with him said his punctilious ways sometimes veered into obsessive-compulsive behavior. His office, for example, always had to be immaculate. According to a former employee, who requested anonymity because of continuing litigation and because, he said, regulators have told Madoff employees not to speak to the media, Mr. Madoff scouted the office for potential filth. Once, when he spotted an employee eating a pear at his desk in New York, this person said, Mr. Madoff spied some juice dripping onto the gray carpet. “What do you think you are doing?” this person recalls Mr. Madoff demanding. Eating a pear, the employee replied. Mr. Madoff ripped the soiled carpet tile from the floor, then rushed to a closet to retrieve a similar swatch to replace it.  
  
Julia Fenwick, who was the office manager for Mr. Madoff’s London operation from 2001 until the unit was shuttered in December, said that “everything had to be perfect” and that “you never left paper on your desk — ever.” Although he visited the London office only a couple of times a year, usually on the way to his vacation home in France, Mr. Madoff still reveled in micromanaging everything there, including the office décor. The London unit recently finished spending about $700,000 for a refurbishment that recreated the black and gray palette of Mr. Madoff’s New York office and his private jet, Ms. Fenwick says. The result was office furniture made from black ash, black trimming on gray walls, black computers, black mouse pads and even a black refrigerator on the trading floor.  
  
But former employees and friends say Mr. Madoff’s obsession with order and control of his environment never led them to believe that deeper problems were afoot. “He appeared to believe in family, loyalty and honesty,” said one former Madoff employee, who asked to remain anonymous because of the continuing litigation and investigations. “Never in your wildest imagination would you think he was a fraudster.”  
  
Despite all of the easy money that rolled into Mr. Madoff’s firm for much of its existence, financial pressures began to emerge there during the last several years after Wall Street changed the way securities were priced and as new competition emerged. In his asset management business, however, Mr. Madoff continued to haul in fresh rounds of money from unsuspecting investors hungry for the predictable and handsome returns he booked year after year, without missing a beat. Employees who were veterans in the New York and London offices were even allowed to invest with Mr. Madoff, according to people who worked at the firm. Some employees are said to have given Mr. Madoff a large portion of their life savings — all of which now appears to be gone. Like so many others who invested with him, his employees weren’t lured to his funds simply by a promise of outsize returns. Rather, they say, they sought the security of investing with a man they knew and trusted. The Bernie they thought they knew.  
  
Mr. Madoff’s confidence reminds J. Reid Meloy, a forensic psychologist, of criminals he has studied. “Typically, people with psychopathic personalities don’t fear getting caught,” explains Dr. Meloy, author of a 1988 textbook, _The Psychopathic Mind_. “They tend to be very narcissistic with a strong sense of entitlement.”  
  
All of which has led some forensic psychologists to see some similarities between him and serial killers like Ted Bundy. They say that whereas Mr. Bundy murdered people, Mr. Madoff murdered wallets, bank accounts and people’s sense of financial trust and security. Like Mr. Bundy, Mr. Madoff used a sharp mind and an affable demeanor to create a persona that didn’t exist, according to this view, and lulled his victims into a false sense of security. And when publicly accused, he seemed to show no remorse.  
  
Television footage of Mr. Madoff entering his apartment building on East 64th Street at Lexington Avenue after federal authorities charged him with fraud in December doesn’t seem to show a man exhibiting any sorrow or regret. With a battery of reporters asking him whether he felt remorse, he declined to respond and pushed his way into his building. (Thus far, his only public apology has apparently been in letters left in his lobby for fellow tenants who suffered through the media circus outside their building.)  
  
To some extent, analysts of criminal behavior say, defining Mr. Madoff is complicated by the wide variety of possible explanations for his scheme: a desire to accumulate vast wealth, a need to dominate others and a need to prove that he was smarter than everyone else. That was shown, they say, in an ability to dupe investors and regulators for years.  
  
Like the former FBI agent Mr. McCrary, Dr. Meloy cautions that he has not met Mr. Madoff and can’t make a clinical diagnosis. Nevertheless, he says individuals with psychopathic personalities tend to strongly believe that they’re special. “They believe ‘I’m above the law,’ and they believe they cannot be caught,” Mr. Meloy says. “But the Achilles’ heel of the psychopath is his sense of impunity. That is, eventually, what will bring him down.”  
  
He says it makes complete sense that Mr. Madoff would have courted regulators, even if he ran the risk of exposing his own actions by doing so. “In a scheme like this, it’s very important to keep those who could threaten you very close to you,” Dr. Meloy explains. “You want to develop them as allies and shape how they go about their business and their attitudes toward you.”  
  
Indeed, if it is shown that Mr. Madoff fooled regulators for decades, that would have been a “heady, intoxicating” experience and would have fueled a sense of entitlement and grandiosity, Mr. McCrary says. And by reeling in people from the Jewish community, from charities, from public institutions and from prominent and relatively sophisticated investor networks worldwide, Mr. Madoff wreaked havoc on many lives.  
  
That’s why Mr. McCrary says it’s not too far-fetched to compare Mr. Madoff to serial killers. “With serial killers, they have control over the life or death of people,” Mr. McCrary explains. “They’re playing God. That’s the grandiosity coming through. The sense of being superior. Madoff is getting the same thing. He’s playing financial god, ruining these people and taking their money.”

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"Disney's Surprise Deal With Competition, Springbok Stakes Claim in Partnership," by Anne Thompson, _Variety_ , February 9, 2009 **  
  
**Disney has made a surprising acquisition for a new jewel in the crown of the Magic Kingdom, and it's with one of its oldest sworn rivals. DreamWorks Pictures, long suffering from a yo-yo pattern of success and failure and desperately in need of a cash infusion, sought a $175 million loan from Disney, to supplant an earlier such loan it got last year from India's Reliance Entertainment, in exchange for being named as production partner in all its films. Disney allowed the loan, under massive concessions. Under its Touchstone Pictures banner, long used for nearly 30 years for projects not fitting its family friendly image, Disney will distribute 30 DreamWorks films and own them in perpetuity. It will also grant DreamWorks access to Disney's pay television agreement with Starz. The deal is nonexclusive, and will allow DreamWorks to release movies by itself or other studios at the same time.  
  
The deal was struck after both companies lost the figures in charge that had spearheaded the 15-year rivalry, Michael Eisner and Jeffrey Katzenberg, and after Steven Spielberg, once done with last summer's _Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull_ (which was a healthy box office success despite a middling critical reception), moved, along with Reliance, to reorganize the company to bring it more sustained success and stability, especially after a long alliance with Paramount ended. Together, they have reorganized it as DreamWorks Studios, which the official name for the parent company overseeing their film and television productions (but not animation, as Katzenberg spun off DreamWorks Animation as a separate company in 2004, where he still is in charge, to raise badly needed capital for DreamWorks as a whole.) Spielberg also sold their old offices to move to new ones on the Universal Studios backlot, to be closer to his old home and by the offices of his production company, Amblin Entertainment. Universal also expects to assist in the new DreamWorks considerably.  
  
The first film under the Disney pact that will be released is an adaptation of _I Am Number Four_ , the first book in a young adult series by James Frey (infamous for the controversy around his book _A Million Little Pieces)_ , under the pseudonym Pittacus Lore, which will come out in 2011. Also expected to be part of the deal are Spielberg's immediate next projects, _War Horse_ and the long-gestating _Lincoln_ , which Springbok Productions have committed to producing as well. "Steven is one of the greats, and we are honored to be associated with him," Jennifer Todd states confidently.  
  
Springbok also have at least two other projects to be released in the Disney/DreamWorks deal: a film series version of _Sailor Moon_ to be written by Diablo Cody ( _Juno_ ) and creator Naoko Takeuchi and directed by Patty Jenkins ( _Monster)_ , and a film adaptation of the Andrew Lloyd Webber/Jim Steinman musical _Whistle Down the Wind_. The latter marks Springbok's first ever flop in stage musicals, as after a reasonably well (in ticket sales) North American tour, it was savaged by critics on Broadway and closed after only 54 performances, not coming close to earning back its capitalization. Still, the company, along with Amblin Entertainment, feels that there is a Stateside home for the West End hit, and state that Lloyd Webber and librettists Patricia Knop and Gale Edwards will write the script, along with veteran Broadway hand James Lapine, and Garry Marshall ( _Beaches, Pretty Woman_ ) will direct. Original choreographer Anthony van Laast will come aboard, and the film will be shot on location in Louisiana.

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“DreamWorks Gets Disney Cash in Distribution Deal,” by Claudia Eller, _Los Angeles Times_ , February 10, 2009 **  
  
**Steven Spielberg's DreamWorks studio finalized a distribution deal with The Walt Disney Company on Monday after winning key financial commitments that it had failed to extract from its presumed partner, Universal Pictures. Under the deal, Disney will put up hundreds of millions of dollars for film print and advertising costs and will share its valuable pay television slots with DreamWorks. Springbok Productions, the ten-year-old emerging entertainment powerhouse, will also chip in to pay P &A costs as well have a direct hand in marketing the films. Disney will also give DreamWorks -- which has been struggling to raise money for its new studio -- a cash advance of about $100 million and a potential $75-million credit line, which Spielberg can draw on for future productions.  
  
Disney's $175-million outlay is taking the form of a loan rather than an equity investment, according to people close to the matter. DreamWorks desperately needs the cash to get its slate of movies rolling, but it can't access Disney's funds until Spielberg raises $325 million in debt financing, which will trigger a matching equity investment by his Indian partner, Reliance Entertainment. "Disney has given us all the support we need to be in a position to raise our money and launch our company," said Stacey Snider, chief executive and partner of DreamWorks.  
  
DreamWorks had hoped to have its bank financing in place by the end of the first quarter, but that now appears unlikely. A person close to the matter said April was more feasible. Spielberg and Reliance will continue to fund overhead at DreamWorks, which employs about 60 people, until the deal is completed.  
  
Disney's distribution agreement calls for DreamWorks to deliver up to 30 movies. DreamWorks hopes to make up to six to eight films a year for Disney's Touchstone Films label. Springbok, besides chipping in costs, will co-produce several films with DreamWorks. The first release, yet to be identified, is expected in 2011. Disney will market and release the movies globally except for India, where Mumbai-based Reliance retains distribution rights. The Burbank studio will advance a considerable part of the film printing and advertising costs in exchange for collecting a distribution fee of as much as 10%. Springbok will collect no fees for its involvement in advertising the movies, but will collect a portion of the proceeds for films it co-produces. DreamWorks will also be able to air its movies in program slots that Disney has with pay-TV outlet Starz. Pay TV deals provide a significant revenue stream for movie companies. DreamWorks recently failed to secure its own pay-TV deal with HBO.  
  
Spielberg hooked up with Reliance in September in a 50-50 venture to relaunch DreamWorks as a new studio following its split from parent Paramount Pictures. Reliance agreed to match in equity what DreamWorks raised in debt, but those efforts have been greatly hampered by the global credit crisis. DreamWorks ultimately aims to raise $1.25 billion in financing for the new studio.  
  
The deal between DreamWorks and Disney came to light late last week after a previously announced agreement with Universal Pictures fell apart. Universal had earlier beat Disney and other suitors to the punch by apparently cinching the right to distribute DreamWorks' new movies. But, as DreamWorks' efforts to raise funding on schedule were hindered by the roiling financial markets, Spielberg and Reliance put pressure on Universal to change the original terms of the agreement. Among the sticking points was Universal's refusal to put up funds for prints and marketing of DreamWorks movies -- an extremely risky investment given the uncertainty of the film business. DreamWorks also wanted more movie slots from Universal's deal with HBO than the studio was prepared to provide.

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"The Walt Disney Studios Enters Long-Term Distribution Agreement With DreamWorks Studios", BusinessWire, February 11, 2009 **  
  
**Burbank, CA— The Walt Disney Studios has formally agreed to enter into a nonexclusive long-term distribution arrangement with filmmaker and DreamWorks Studios co-founder Steven Spielberg, and partner Stacey Snider, chief executive officer of DreamWorks, to distribute 30 upcoming live-action motion pictures produced by DreamWorks under their partnership with Reliance BIG Entertainment, part of The Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group, it was announced today by Meryl Poster, chairman of The Walt Disney Studios.  
  
Under the terms of this arrangement, Disney will handle distribution and marketing for approximately six to eight DreamWorks films each year. Furthermore, Springbok Productions will take on a massive stake in the venture by co-producing several of the films, and helping pay budgetary and marketing costs. The first DreamWorks motion picture to be released under the Touchstone Pictures banner is scheduled to hit theaters in 2011.  
  
DreamWorks principals Spielberg and Snider partnered with Reliance BIG Entertainment last fall to form a new motion picture company. In addition to being a partner in DreamWorks, Reliance will also distribute the new company’s projects in India.  
  
Commenting on the announcement, Poster said, “We’re both thrilled and honored to be marketing and distributing DreamWorks’ signature upcoming live-action motion pictures, and to begin a new relationship with such respected colleagues as Steven, Stacey, and their creative team at DreamWorks, as well as the people at Springbok. Steven has made some of the biggest and most loved films of all-time, and continues to be one of the great icons of our industry. Stacey has an impeccable reputation and a phenomenal track record for making a wide variety of quality films. Springbok also is a success story like no other, and represent a great fusion of artistic freedom and box office gold. Together, their motion pictures will be the perfect complement to the already robust slate of Disney and Touchstone films being made by Oren Aviv and his team.”  
  
Bob Iger, president and CEO, The Walt Disney Company, added, “We are tremendously pleased to join forces with Steven Spielberg, whose artistic vision and commitment to quality filmmaking are legendary. DreamWorks has had a great creative and commercial track record under the leadership of Steven and Stacey Snider and I am delighted they’re now associated with Disney. Furthering our relationship with Springbok is also a plus!”  
  
Steven Spielberg said, “Disney is the birthplace of imagination and has always been as close to the worldwide audience as any company ever has. I am so pleased that industry leaders like Bob Iger and Meryl Poster reached out to become our distribution partner, and that Kurt Cobain, Charlize Theron, Jennifer Todd and the Springbok Production team also saw fit to join in. This is a major step forward for us and Reliance.”  
  
Stacey Snider added, “Under Bob Iger and Meryl Poster’s leadership, The Walt Disney Company represents the highest standard of quality in our industry. You can also say much the same about Springbok. Everyone at DreamWorks is thrilled to be embarking upon this new and exciting partnership and we look forward to our future with their great team."  
  
Jennifer Todd added, "Steven Spielberg is one of the true creative giants of Hollywood, Disney represents an amazing degree of quality, and it is an honor to be involved in this amazing new venture."  
  
About The Walt Disney Studios  
The Walt Disney Studios is a unit of The Walt Disney Company (NYSE: DIS) and produces and distributes motion pictures under the following banners: Walt Disney Pictures(which include live-action movies, animated feature films from Walt Disney Animation Studios and Pixar Animation Studios) as well as Lucasfilm Ltd. and Touchstone Pictures as well as former divisions Hollywood Pictures and Miramax Films. Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures serves as the Studio’s international distribution arm. Buena Vista Home Entertainment/Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment distributes Disney and other film titles to the rental and sell-through home entertainment markets. Disney Theatrical Group is among the world’s most successful commercial theatre enterprises producing or licensing live entertainment events that reach a global annual audience of more than 20 million people in more than 40 countries, and the Disney Music Group distributes original music and motion picture soundtracks under its three record labels: Walt Disney Records, Hollywood Records and Lyric Street Records.  
  
About DreamWorks Studios  
Steven Spielberg and Stacey Snider and The Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group announced the formation of a new motion picture company which will be led by Spielberg and Snider. The new company is a continuation of DreamWorks Studios which was formed in 1994 by Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg, and David Geffen. The company won three Best Picture Academy Awards with _Saving Private Ryan_ (co-produced by Paramount) _, Gladiator,_ and _A Beautiful Mind_ (both co-produced with Universal). Among the company’s other successes have been such films as _American Beauty_ , _The Ring_ , _Minority Report_ (co-produced with 20th Century Fox), _War of the Worlds_ , _Dreamgirls_ , and _Transformers_ (all co-produced with Paramount). Snider joined DreamWorks Studios in 2006 as Co-Chairman and CEO. Snider has overseen the company’s business strategy as well as the creative and financial aspects of all film development and production.  
  
About Reliance BIG Entertainment  
Reliance BIG Entertainment Ltd. (RBEL) is the flagship media and entertainment arm of Indian conglomerate, Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group (R-ADAG), with significant presence in film entertainment (film production, distribution, and exhibition), broadcasting and new media ventures. With investments over USD 1 billion in its Filmed Entertainment business RBEL’s motion picture brand BIG Pictures has built a formidable film production slate in Hindi, English & other Indian languages, which it markets & distributes worldwide. In Hollywood, BIG Pictures has development silos with Nicolas Cage’s Saturn Productions, Jim Carrey’s JC 23 Entertainment, George Clooney’s Smokehouse Productions, Chris Columbus’ 1492 Pictures, Tom Hanks' Playtone Productions, Brad Pitt’s Plan B Entertainment, Jay Roach’s Everyman Pictures, Brett Ratner’s Rat Entertainment and Julia Roberts’ Red Om Films.

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Springbok's 10th Anniversary Press Release, February 20, 2009

Springbok is quite pleased to announce that 2009 is shaping up to its busiest year yet! In the matter of live action films, there is plenty to share. First off, after some time to figure out a release schedule, the two-part HBO biopic _Phil Spector: Tearing Down the Wall of Sound_ , will be released on March 12 and 13. Featuring Al Pacino as the infamous and reclusive genius producer who was also convicted of second-degree murder, the film moves to track the entirety of Spector's life and career, the agony and the ecstasy. Thanks to resolving our differences of the past year, _Matt Foley: Motivational Speaker_ will finally see the light of day on May 5. A passion project that Chris Farley has kept close to his heart for more than a decade, it is well past time for the silver screen to admire and fall in love with the well-intentioned, over the top, motivational speaker who lives his life in a van down by the river. Christopher Nolan's latest film, _Inception_ , a pulsating cerebral and contemplative thriller, is set to be the summer tentpole when it is released. Quentin Tarantino's newest project, _Inglourious Basterds_ , a World War II revenge fantasy involving a group of American vigilantes seeking a chance to kill Hitler, is another uproarious, humorous, ultraviolent installment from one of the modern auteurs of our age. Terry Gilliam's _The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus_ will premiere at the Cannes Film Festival on May 22, then will enter a staggered release schedule of the UK in September, Europe as a whole in October, and North America on Christmas. _Insanity Row_ , a big, bombastic action film starring Jean-Claude Van Damme, is another big release scheduled for the fall, sure to attract plenty of popcorn sales. And James Cameron's latest passion project, _Avatar_ , is certain to once again create a new paradigm in the world of filmmaking and visual effects, set amongst a world where humanity is seeking for raw materials to sustain their race on an alien world, and a man paralyzed from the waist down gets a chance to live once more using synthetic bodies called "avatars" to walk amongst the natives.  
  
The future is just as exciting as this year, to be sure. Springbok is pleased to announce that it is working with Disney on a live-action sequel to _Alice in Wonderland_ , though using the same name (because it's more marketable!), to be directed by Tim Burton, who is eager to bring his signature style and visual flair to the world of Wonderland and its inhabitants. Along with Sony's Columbia Pictures and producer Scott Rudin, Springbok has officially secured the rights to make a film franchise of the _Millennium_ novel series by Stieg Larsson, who died before his books could be published. Steven Zaillian is set to write the script and David Fincher to direct the first installment, _The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo_ , with hope to release it in 2011. Work on the _Alien_ prequel/spinoff _Prometheus_ is officially underway. The film, directed by Ridley Scott and penned by Jon Spahits and Damon Lindelof, will be released by 20th Century Fox in two parts in 2010 and 2011, and contains an impressive cast with the likes of Noomi Rapace (who played Lisbeth Salander in the Swedish miniseries version of the _Millennium_ novels), Michael Fassbender, Guy Pearce, Idris Elba, and Charlize Theron will indeed have a significant role in the film. Springbok is also partnering with Walden Media to create a film adaptation of _The Giver_ and its followups, _Gathering Blue_ and _Messenger_. Jeff Bridges, who has long been attached to the title role, is looking forward to finally having this adaptation ready to go in 2010. Though he will certainly be kept busy with Springbok for a while, as it will release the Coen brothers' forthcoming project, a remake of _True Grit_ , with Bridges attached as Rooster Cogburn, and also featuring Matt Damon and Josh Brolin. Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio are reteaming for an adaptation of Dennis Lehane's novel _Shutter Island_ , and Springbok will release the film next year. Richard Linklater is reuniting with Springbok to work on his latest work, a film examining the strange and true case of Bernie Tiede, a funeral service worker and local philanthropist much beloved in the town of Carthage, Texas, who was later convicted of murder. Springbok is also in the midst of doing research for a projected film about the life and crimes of baby snatcher Georgia Tann, who used helping parents adopt children to mask her actions. And of course, there are the forthcoming Enima adaptations of _Sailor Moon_ and _Inuyasha_ , and its recent stake in the distribution deal between Disney and DreamWorks.  
  
Regarding animation, besides our continued past projects still ongoing, Springbok is reunited with Robert Zemeckis and his ImageMovers company for his latest project, a rendition of _A Christmas Carol_ , to be released by Disney this holiday season. Once again taking full advantage of the motion capture technology utilized to impressive effect on _The Polar Express_ , this also allows the same actor to portray various characters at the same time; featuring Jim Carrey as Ebenezer Scrooge at various points in his life as well as the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Yet to Come; Gary Oldman as Bob Cratchit and Jacob Marley; as well as the likes of Colin Firth, Bob Hoskins, Cary Elwes and Robin Wright Penn in additional roles. Springbok is also planning to work on a continuation of new songs for _Schoolhouse Rock_ , which will once again air on ABC on Saturday mornings, as well as The Disney Channel, and on ABC Classic and Disney Channel Classic, as well as be on new DVD and Blu-ray releases.  
  
For television, while Springbok did have to deal with a major disappointment with the collapse of the CBS sitcom _Looking for Lucky_ last year after two seasons of dismal ratings, there is still the massive of its continued work with Carmen Sandiego on PBS, the past success of _Workshop_ and _The Devil's Advocate_ , bringing _The Practice_ to a highly well-received finale last year, the taking over of the massive juggernaut _House, M.D._ , the surprise hit of _The Chris Farley Show_ on NBC, and the revival series _Ellen: The Second Coming_ on ABC (pushing her to have two highly successful series on the same channel running at the same time). Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk, hot off the success of _Nip/Tuck_ and their invaluable assistance in other series, are also working on an anthology series of their own for FX, which Springbok is certainly pleased to be involved in from the ground up.  
  
The premiere of _Dixie Dope_ will be held at the Berkeley Repository Theatre this September, before transferring to New York, and further workshops for _The Book of Mormon_ will also be held. _Love Never Dies_ , the sequel to _The Phantom of the Opera_ , will simultaneously premiere next year at the Adelphi Theatre in London and at the Neil Simon Theatre in New York.  
  
In the world of video games, _Zophyre 2_ is coming close to release, as are _BioShock 2_ and a sequel to _Portal_. A sequel to _Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare_ , is also in the running to be one of the biggest success stories of the year, especially after the reception of last year's _Call of Duty: World at War_.

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"Springbok Sells $7.5 Billion In Bonds," _Deadline Hollywood_ , March 2, 2009

To help shore up its position in the midst of the struggling economy, Springbok Productions has sold several tranches of bond notes, assuming $7.5 billion in debt, $1 billion of which was made into a convertible note. This also comes along with an infusion of another $12 billion in equity from investments by hedge fund manager Bob Jain, his wife, fashion executive Carola Jain, a doubling down by X.com/PayPal/Tesla founder Elon Musk, who invested in Springbok in 2006, Allen & Company, investment and a new revolving credit line from Capital One, and a non-ownership investments by One Equity Partners, Apollo Global Management, Quadrangle Group and Fortress Investment Group, the last of which may or may not be a precursor to an eventual IPO and taking Springbok public. Fortress has certainly expressed interest in helping take Springbok public in the past, but calls to the Fortress offices went unanswered. It also announced that Saudi Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal and his investment would be officially cut loose from Springbok, as he was being made to sell his investment in the company.

The notes have three tiers of interest rates and maturity dates. They come in at 2.875% and December 2010, 3.0215% and December 2011, and 3.17% and December 2012, respectively. Springbok CFO James W. Keyes expressed confidence that the debt will be taken care of in a timely fashion and assuming it at this moment in time makes strategic sense. "This is a decision to help protect Springbok's position and help propel its growth. And we will be able to repay the debt well before the maturity date."

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"Still Magic after 20 Years with Mel Gibson at Icon", Screenwise Australia, March 29, 2009 **  
  
**Life has come full circle for Bruce Davey, the Sydney accountant who joined forces with Mel Gibson in the late 1980s to form what would grow into one of Hollywood's most successful independent entertainment ventures.  
  
After 20 years of rough and tumble in the most cutthroat of businesses, where he gained a well-earned reputation for driving a hard bargain, Davey has moved into his multi-million-dollar Sydney harborside mansion, enjoying again living in what he calls the best city in the world. Although he has handed the day-to-day operations of Santa Monica-based Icon, the company he started with Gibson, over to Mark Gooder (who was promoted from its Australian chief) Davey is still intimately involved as chairman of the board.  
  
When I interviewed him last May, he was surrounded by boxes as Icon was moving its premises into the Dendy offices in Newtown, Sydney after purchasing the arthouse cinema chain from the Becker Group for $21 million in a contentious deal which was completed on April 30, 2008. "None of this would be possible without Mel," Davey said that week as he reflected on the growth of Icon into a serious independent film and television producer, sales company, distributor and, now, exhibition company.  
  
Their relationship stretches back to 1980, when Davey, a chartered accountant with a clientele in the entertainment industry, was asked to help a young actor. "Mel came to see me with these shoeboxes filled with papers and three years of taxes that hadn't been done," he says. "I remember that I got him a refund of about $1200 and he thought I was a genius. I suppose it started from that."  
  
From those beginnings, their relationship grew until Davey became Gibson's business manager. "I did have opportunities (to work exclusively) with other clients, like Air Supply and actors like Judy Davis and Hugo Weaving, but there was something about Mel. I really believed in him. I think what I liked about him was the fact that he couldn't tell a lie to save his life."  
  
Davey says the pair got to Hollywood by accident. "Mel wanted to make _Hamlet_ and the (Hollywood) agent he had who was helping him with it lasted about five minutes. It's pretty hard to get someone to give you money to make _Hamlet_ ," he said. "I told him that if he wanted to make this happen, someone had to roll up their sleeves and find the (financing) and he asked me if I wanted to have a crack at it and I agreed."  
  
The pair decided to form a company and thought about names as they sat in the study of Gibson's cattle property in NSW, which Gibson sold sometime in 2004. "He came up with the name," says Davey, "We were down at his farm and I told him he needed a name and that it wasn't a good idea to have Gibson in the name because he had been involved in another company (which was not successful) and he looked across his den and saw a book on Russian icons and he looks up and says, 'Let's call it, Icon'. I thought, 'That'll work."' And work it did, though it took many years for Icon to be treated seriously.  
  
"Once we'd done _Hamlet_ (in 1990), Mel said, "Can we do this again?" Davey remembers. "We spoke to the studios and Warners was happy to give him a deal, mainly because they didn't want to let him out of their sights because of (the success of the) _Lethal Weapon_ (franchise). But they thought Icon was a joke. I'll always remember that; they didn't take us seriously at all. They just thought it'd be one of these vanity deals they give stars, where they pay for your overheads and kick you some money and nothing comes of it. Sort of thing where they give you an office and money just so when they want to have lunch with you, they know where to find you. But even then, when he was one of the biggest stars in Hollywood, Mel was different."  
  
Davey said Gibson once told him the business was "about longevity". "He says, 'While I'm an actor I want to use that (influence) to produce and direct because I don't think I'll always be an actor'," he said. "He understood back then that he needed to have more strings to his bow. But when we went to Warners and said Mel had found a film he wanted to direct ( _The Man Without A Face_ ), Terry (Semel) and Bob (Daly), who were running the place back then, couldn't understand it. They couldn't believe that Mel wouldn't take $15 million US to make _Lethal Weapon 3_ but instead wanted to go and direct _Man Without A Face_ for peanuts. They didn't get it because in Hollywood, it's all about money and Mel's not all about money. He's passionate and involved and wants to do things that have artistic integrity."  
  
As Randall Wallace, who wrote _Braveheart_ , which earned Gibson and Davey an Oscar, once said of Gibson: "He has not surrendered his soul to the idolatry of Hollywood." But while Gibson has referred to himself as "a fiscal imbecile", such a charge couldn't be leveled at Davey. Their partnership has been so successful in good part because they complement each other. "I've learned so much from him. He really does set the tone," says Davey.  
  
Gibson has been, of course, a lightning rod for controversy, seen by many Jews as an anti-Semite because of his interpretation of the death of Jesus in his film _The Passion of the Christ_ and, of course, his notorious drink-driving arrest in Malibu two years prior to this interview, in which he reportedly slurred Jews. It also prevented his 2006 film _Apocalypto_ from being a smash hit the way his last two films as a director had attained, and led to a widely publicized three-picture deal with Springbok Productions being nixed. "I know the kind of person he is," Davey, who plays his cards close to his chest, says. "He's a great guy and he sure doesn't need me to be defending him." When queried about his feelings regarding the collapse of the Springbok deal, Davey is similarly cagey. "I can't deny that it was a disappointment to lose the deal, but that's life. Springbok is certainly a great company, a great competitor, and they certainly don't need us, and we don't need them."  
  
Before they became unfathomably rich with the success of the self-funded _Passion of the Christ_ \-- which cost about $25 million US and may end up making more than $1 billion US when home video sales are factored in -- Davey and Gibson grew their company in ways few Hollywood players have done. "We started to branch out the company really because we wanted to own our labors of love," says Davey. "We started to see that we were paying other companies to do things we could do in-house for half the price, so we started in sales and distribution." As a result of acquisitions in those areas, Icon now controls a lucrative library of about 250 titles.  
  
The arthouse cinema chain Dendy also seems to be a natural fit for Icon because its upscale customer base - the so-called A/B demographic - gels nicely with the sort of sophisticated films that Icon makes and distributes. But Davey laughs at suggestions that Icon has a grand media plan in Australia. "We've never had a five-year plan, or a five-month plan or a five-minute plan for that matter," he says. "From the beginning, for us it's always just been a matter of trying to capitalize on opportunities that present themselves and this was a good opportunity for us. I suppose if you want to describe our model it would be one of being opportunistic. I think Dendy is a brand that's strong in Australia and I don't believe it's been fully utilized."  
  
Gooder underlines what he calls the "simpatico" between Icon and Dendy and says the coming months will see a marriage of the brands. "That doesn't mean that we bought a cinema chain so we can show our films and our films only," he says. "You have to view both entities as independent of each other, but obviously, there are great possibilities to marry them and of course we'll be doing that." Gooder says he fully subscribes to the existing blueprint at Icon. "There's actually a logic out of everything we do," he says. "It's basically borne out of, 'How do you make money out of this business.' We ask ourselves that question, then we start looking for the answer."  
  
Icon will continue growing but not in a way that changes the culture of the company. "The last thing we want is to become a studio," says Davey. "We don't want to become that top heavy. We want to be independent and passionate. We don't want to lose the magic. In some ways, even the Springbok deal might have imperiled that, so it's a kind of relief to be freed from that. That said, Dendy will be glad to make deals to show their films on its screens!"

* * *

"Time Warner Walking Out on AOL Marriage," NBC News Website, May 28, 2009  
  
 _Internet-driven boom optimism created one of the worst mergers in history  
_  
When AOL flashed $147 billion in stock puffed up by the dot-com boom, Time Warner, one of the world's biggest media companies, fell into its arms in 2001. They swooned over their combination of Internet access and traditional media. But before long, reality intruded. People were saying the marriage wouldn't last. Finally, after years of denial, Time Warner filed for the corporate world's version of a divorce Thursday. It said it will spin out AOL as a separate company and get on with its life as a movie, TV and publishing conglomerate. Now AOL will try to bounce back even as its once-ubiquitous dial-up Internet access business fades away and its online advertising business struggles to pick up the slack.  
  
The fix-it challenge falls to former Google Inc. advertising executive Tim Armstrong, 38, who was hired as AOL CEO in March to try to restore the luster to a brand once known as America Online. Time Warner owns 95 percent of AOL and will buy out Google's 5 percent stake during the third quarter for an undisclosed amount. From there, AOL and its 7000 employees will be spun off into a separate publicly traded company around the end of the year.  
  
"For AOL, becoming a standalone company will give it more focus and strategic flexibility," Time Warner's chief executive, Jeff Bewkes, said at Time Warner's annual shareholder meeting Thursday in New York. Meanwhile, Time Warner will focus on movies, cable TV networks such as HBO and CNN, and publishing magazines such as _Time_ , _People_ and _Sports Illustrated._  
  
AOL once defined the Web for millions of people. But much of its original revenue came from providing dial-up access, a business that peaked for AOL in 2002 at 26.7 million subscribers, back when the company stuffed free trial CDs in magazines and mailboxes. The march of broadband ate away at the business, and AOL had just 6.3 million dial-up subscribers at the end of the last quarter. The decline undercut the premise that the content created by Time Warner's media empire would become even more valuable as AOL plumbed it to expand its Internet audience. Even after AOL broadened its reach by giving away content and running free, ad-supported sites, that didn't create many new opportunities for Time Warner. Bewkes acknowledged last month that AOL helped promote material such as Warner Bros. movies or TNT television shows, but didn't bring in new revenue for the content. That function can be served just as well by Web portals the company doesn't own, like Yahoo or MSN.  
  
It's no wonder that AOL Time Warner quickly disintegrated into one of the worst corporate combinations in history. In 2002 and 2003, Time Warner absorbed nearly $100 billion in charges to account for the rapidly diminishing value of the combined company. Time Warner even dropped AOL from its corporate name in 2003. Today, the combined value of AOL, Time Warner and Time Warner's recently spun off cable business totals around $40 billion. At AOL in particular, the falloff has been stark. When Google agreed to pay $1 billion for its 5 percent stake in late 2005, the investment pegged AOL's market value at $20 billion. This past January, Google estimated its investment had plunged by more than 70 percent, leaving AOL with a market value of about $5.5 billion.  
  
Today AOL gives away most of its services, like email, to drive traffic to its ad-supported Web sites. But after a few strong quarters, ad growth slowed and then began declining. AOL also has Platform-A, a business that places ads on sites all over the Web, not just ones run by AOL. Yet that reach hasn't mattered enough: Both Yahoo Inc. and Google mine bigger profits from their ad businesses. Although AOL's operations make money, its operating profit of $150 million in the first quarter marked a 47 percent drop from the same period in 2008. Meanwhile, AOL's Web sites, which include celebrity gossip site TMZ and tech blog Engadget, averaged 106 million unique U.S. visitors each month during the first quarter, according to comScore Media Metrix — a drop from 110 million visitors in the first three months of 2008. The top three Web companies all posted gains in traffic in that same period: Google, Yahoo and Microsoft Corp.  
  
Time Warner shares rose 55 cents, or 2.4 percent, to close at $23.55 on Thursday. Frederick Moran, an analyst at The Benchmark Co., said investors and Time Warner shareholders will be pleased by the spinoff news because AOL has acted "almost like an anchor" on Time Warner's stock over the last few years. Time Warner also recently spun out Time Warner Cable, which provides cable TV and broadband Internet access. Since then, Time Warner Cable's stock has risen 26 percent — but Time Warner shares have been essentially flat.  
  
Ted Leonsis, an executive who retired from AOL in late 2006, said the decision to spin off AOL emphasizes a shift from seeking size and scale — two attributes that were in vogue 10 years ago — to a focus on being nimble and innovative. "I'm thrilled for the employees and I don't see any other plan, so while it's a great decision it was an inevitable decision," he said. Former Time Warner CEO Gerald Levin, who was instrumental in AOL's takeover, recently declined to comment about the looming breakup. Levin now works as director of a rehabilitation center in Southern California. AOL co-founder Steve Case, the other main architect of the 2001 deal and the founder and CEO of investment company Revolution LLC, wrote Thursday on the short-messaging site Twitter that he is glad to see AOL set loose. He said it "has been a long, tortuous journey" and now is "time to open a new chapter."

* * *

Q&A With Steve Perry, _Classic Rock_ , June 22, 2009

Q: What was behind the decision to augment Journey with another lead vocalist?  
A: It was partially inspired by what Boston has been doing since _Walk On_ , how Brad (Delp) is perfectly content sharing the mic with lots of other people. I mean, he's the nicest guy you could ever meet, not a hint of ego on him, and they really make it work. I certainly want to take care of my voice, because of the fact that I'm definitely not a spring chicken anymore. Before we made the last album (2008's _Revelation_ ), I told Neal (Schon) and Jonathan (Cain) that "I don't want to keep shouldering the burden by myself, and I know that you're both getting a little upset at having to transpose the songs so often, or at least don't want to do it this low. If we get a younger guy here to help with me, he can hit notes closer to the original range, and it might be nice to even duet together." So they went out and looked over YouTube to see if anyone would knock them out. That's where Arnel Pineda came in. Neal brought us all in, showed us this video of this sprightly Filipino guy, belting out "Faithfully" note-perfect. Even I was taken aback. We knew this was who we needed, and now I feel that Journey definitely has regained a lot of vitality. That has especially been the case since we signed with Exploitation Records in 2001, after we fulfilled our contract with Columbia Records/Sony Music. The same is true of Boston, Kansas, Foreigner, Styx. All of us have benefited, and except for Kansas, all of us now have additional co-lead vocalists to help shoulder the burden, and add their own flair. Kelly Hansen has done a lot of great things for Foreigner, especially when Lou (Gramm) is on the fence, Tommy DeCarlo and Fran Cosmo work well in Boston, and Lawrence Gowan adds quite a nice touch in Styx, especially for those who think Dennis (DeYoung) is a prima donna and a shlocky balladeer.  
Q: Of the songs on _Revelation_ , you didn't contribute any lyrics at all. Why is that?  
A: Honestly, I'm burned out, being "that guy", the one who comes up with anthems, writing in the style Neal and Jon want and flesh out. I haven't contributed anything to Journey, lyrically, since _Trial by Fire_ , and I had to disengage from the mothership, get off that scene. I know they're a little upset about that, especially because I do want to write material for a third solo album sometime in the future. I can't say when that will come, other than it will.  
Q: Do you foresee that being a source of conflict with the band?  
A: No, because I would take care to stress that I wouldn't make it as big a deal as being with Journey. It's not like _Street Talk_ or _For the Love of Strange Medicine_ , because I wouldn't do high-concept videos or take the material on tour, and I'd stay on the road with the band. And I do it that way because I don't want them doing material without me and calling it Journey. I've said it many times to Neal and Jon, "If I ever left, I'd be fine with you making music together, but I want you to leave Journey alone. Don't crack the stone, or I will never come back, ever." So, if I do it this, they won't have a chance to create this "nightmare scenario" that I have in my head.  
Q: What would you say to those accusing you of holding the band hostage to your whims and basically throwing down a gauntlet, practically egging them on to create a rift?  
A: I don't care what they all say. I follow the beat of my own drummer, and the others follow theirs. Whatever will be will be.

* * *

"Disney Buys 3000 Additional Acres In Florida," _Orlando Sentinel_ , July 24, 2009

After months of negotiations and a town hall to assuage potential worries regarding environmental impact, the Walt Disney World Resort received permission to purchase an additional 3000 acres of Central Florida land to add to the complex. The resort plans to make four additional gates to add to the five preexisting ones inside the extant 27,000 acres: the Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Disney's Hollywood Studios (having reopened last year after a massive refurbishing), Disney's Animal Kingdom and Disney's America, along with the various hotel resorts and the Downtown Disney complex.

Among the newly planned additions for the four new gates are a Pixar-themed resort, a Star Wars-themed land, and, rumors are to be believed, a Marvel Comics-themed land, following a proposed purchase of Marvel Entertainment by Disney. The proposed ninth gate has yet to have a specific theme. These will all be built and opened within the next decade, and like the already existing five gates, will have limited-menu freestanding McDonald's vendors to go along with the full-service massive McDonald's location near the All-Star Resorts, as part of the renewed Disney-McDonald's strategic alliance in place since 1996.

* * *

"Reliance, DreamWorks Close Deal," by Pamela McClintock, _Variety_ , August 17, 2009 **  
  
**The latest incarnation of DreamWorks officially launched Monday as principal partners Steven Spielberg and Stacey Snider and India’s Reliance Big Pictures announced completion of the first phase of funding for DreamWorks 3.0. Anil Dhirubhai Ambani, chair of Reliance Big parent company Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group, made the joint announcement with Spielberg and Snider.  
  
As part of the deal, J.P. Morgan Securities has arranged for $325 million in senior debt that Reliance will match. As announced earlier this year, Walt Disney Studios, which will distribute and market DreamWorks films, also will extend a $175 million loan to DreamWorks as part of the distrib deal, giving it access to $825 million in financing. Springbok Productions has also announced its intention to work with the new DreamWorks in co-producing several of the films, as well as helping pay budget and marketing costs to minimize DreamWorks' position.  
  
The new venture between Reliance and DreamWorks has been in the works for more than a year and even had many announcements in the trades, but was delayed by the economic crash and the freezing of the credit markets. “This will allow us to move ahead quickly into production with our first group of films," said Stacey Snider and Steven Spielberg in a joint statement.  
  
Statement continued: “We wish to thank Anil personally for his foresight and fortitude over the past months. We congratulate J.P. Morgan for their leadership in attracting this funding during today’s most challenging financial environment. Our thanks also to our distribution partner Disney who we look forward to working with in getting our movies out to the global audience. A very big thanks as well to Springbok Productions, whom we are honored to be working with for _Whistle Down the Wind_ , _War Horse_ and _Lincoln_. They are certainly among the best companies out there today, and they are a definite seal of quality.”  
  
Joining Snider and Spielberg on DreamWorks’ Board of Directors on behalf of the Reliance ADA Group are Amitabh Jhunjhunwala, vice chairman, Reliance Capital, and J.P. Morgan’s Alan J. Levine.  
  
“Our partnership with Stacey and Steven is the cornerstone of our Hollywood strategy as we grow our film interests across the globe. Given our faith in the business plan that they presented to us and despite the current economic climate, we were always confident that this day would come. Now Stacey and Steven can focus on producing more of the great films for which they are renowned,” Ambani said.  
  
DreamWorks has a long-term 30-picture distribution deal with Disney which will market and distribute approximately six to eight live-action films a year for the company, except for India where Reliance Big Entertainment will retain distribution rights. The first release under Disney’s Touchstone Pictures banner is expected in 2011.

* * *

MTV News Interview of Michael Jackson, August 29, 2009

Q: You're about to drop your first album in almost a decade, and your first through Exploitation Records. What, if anything, has changed in the way that you make music?  
A: My philosophy regarding music has never changed. I simply want songs to be the best they can, to truly reflect what's in my heart, and what I believe. And what I feel regarding the making of videos, or rather short films, is the same, I want full stories in the films, a story with a beginning, a middle and an end, something with just as much depth as a major Hollywood movie. What is different is that the Springbok people don't try to restrain me with deadlines, don't hold my masters or publishing hostage, and I can take my time to ensure the album is truly great. I also got the chance to branch out into acting, my life's dream, and to simply be there for my children, watch them grow, make them feel always loved and secure. I also even got to fulfill my lifelong intention to give Neverland away as a gift to the children of the world, a place where they can go and spend as much time as they want, for free, and escape from their troubles and those of the world at large. I don't need to live there to be happy, as long as I have Prince, Paris and Blanket, I am happy. It certainly helps that I have lots of friends that open their homes to me, like Barry Gibb and his place in Miami.  
Q: Do you still intend to stay away from touring? You've announced this intention to stop before, all the way back to _Bad_.  
A: _Invincible_ was my last tour, full stop. I'll never stop performing, and I certainly like the idea of doing residency shows like Celine Dion, Elton John and Cher have been doing in Vegas. But going around the world on a jet for long stretches of time, that's not for me anymore. I'm 51 years old today, and I don't have the stamina that I used to, not even what I used to have when I was 44, 45, when I toured last. Besides, if I kept up touring, I wouldn't have as much time with my children.  
Q: What are you planning to do regarding film projects to follow up _MidKnight_?  
A: I've always wanted to do something regarding the life and imagination of Edgar Allan Poe, because I feel some sort of kinship with him. I think it, and a lot of film projects I do now, will be animated, because it's easier to make the images in my mind come true that way.  
Q: You used to count David Geffen as one of your best and closest friends. How did his trial and conviction make you feel?  
A: David came up to me after _Thriller_ , saying he wanted to work with me, and could get me movie projects. He earned my confidence because he used his connections with Michael Eisner and Jeffrey Katzenberg, when they both ran Disney, and got me the deal for _Captain EO_. He also roped in Jeffrey, and both of them told me that Steven Spielberg wanted me for a Peter Pan project to be made by Disney. Then he told me that Steven dropped us to instead go with TriStar and _Hook_ , making it seem like he betrayed me. I found out, through Steven's testimony at the trial, that this Disney Peter Pan project was never actually in the works, and _Hook_ was the plan all along, so there actually wasn't anything for me. I then put Steven as an enemy, especially when he didn't say anything to defend me against charges of being anti-Semitic when "They Don't Care About Us" was released. It truly made me sick inside, to realize David was using me, and that he also had a hand in sowing problems with me and Sony Music, all because I wouldn't leave to sign with Geffen Records instead. I trusted him completely and openly, and he chose to stab me in the back many times over. Thankfully, Steven and I have reconnected and things are good between us now. 

* * *

"Disney To Acquire Marvel Entertainment", BusinessWire, August 31, 2009  
  
Burbank, CA and New York, NY —Building on its strategy of delivering quality branded content to people around the world, The Walt Disney Company (NYSE: DIS) has agreed to acquire Marvel Entertainment, Inc. (NYSE:MVL) in a stock and cash transaction, the companies announced today.  
  
Under the terms of the agreement and based on the closing price of Disney on August 28, 2009, Marvel shareholders would receive a total of $30 per share in cash plus approximately 0.745 Disney shares for each Marvel share they own. At closing, the amount of cash and stock will be adjusted if necessary so that the total value of the Disney stock issued as merger consideration based on its trading value at that time is not less than 40% of the total merger consideration.  
  
Based on the closing price of Disney stock on Friday, August 28, the transaction value is $50 per Marvel share or approximately $4 billion.  
  
“This transaction combines Marvel’s strong global brand and world-renowned library of characters including _Iron Man, Spider-Man, X-Men, Captain America, Fantastic Four_ and _Thor_ with Disney’s creative skills, unparalleled global portfolio of entertainment properties, and a business structure that maximizes the value of creative properties across multiple platforms and territories,” said Robert A. Iger, President and Chief Executive Officer of The Walt Disney Company. “Ike Perlmutter and his team have done an impressive job of nurturing these properties and have created significant value. We are pleased to bring this talent and these great assets to Disney.”  
  
“We believe that adding Marvel to Disney’s unique portfolio of brands provides significant opportunities for long-term growth and value creation,” Iger said.  
  
“Disney is the perfect home for Marvel’s fantastic library of characters given its proven ability to expand content creation and licensing businesses,” said Ike Perlmutter, Marvel’s Chief Executive Officer. “This is an unparalleled opportunity for Marvel to build upon its vibrant brand and character properties by accessing Disney’s tremendous global organization and infrastructure around the world.”  
  
Under the deal, Disney will acquire ownership of Marvel including its more than 5000 Marvel characters. Mr. Perlmutter will oversee the Marvel properties directly as remaining head of Marvel Comics. However, the company shall be split into three different divisions. Besides Mr. Perlmutter's domain, there will be Marvel Studios, headed by Kevin Feige, which is Marvel's film production company and oversees the so-called Marvel Cinematic Universe. Marvel Television, headed by Jeph Loeb, will officially begin operations in 2012, and will be another separate division, part of the Disney-ABC Television Group. Marvel's preexisting licensing deal with Universal's Islands of Adventure resort shall be annulled, freeing Disney to create a new, massive theme park based on the Marvel characters as part of the newly announced expansion of Walt Disney World Resort.  
  
The Boards of Directors of Disney and Marvel have each approved the transaction, which is subject to clearance under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act, certain non-United States merger control regulations, effectiveness of a registration statement with respect to Disney shares issued in the transaction and other customary closing conditions. The agreement will require the approval of Marvel shareholders. Marvel was advised on the transaction by BofA Merrill Lynch.  
  
About The Walt Disney Company  
The Walt Disney Company, together with its subsidiaries and affiliates, is a leading diversified international family entertainment and media enterprise with five business segments: media networks, parks and resorts, studio entertainment, interactive media and consumer products. Disney is a Dow 30 company with revenues of nearly $38 billion in its most recent fiscal year.  
  
About Marvel Entertainment, Inc.  
Marvel Entertainment, Inc. is one of the world’s most prominent character-based entertainment companies, built on a library of over 5000 characters featured in a variety of media over seventy years. Marvel utilizes its character franchises in licensing, entertainment (via Marvel Studios and Marvel Animation) and publishing (via Marvel Comics).

* * *

"With _Burning Plain_ and Other Work, Charlize Theron Pushes to Make Days Count," by Lavanya Ramanthan, _Washington Post_ , September 18, 2009

Guillermo Arriaga's _The Burning Plain_ is a slow-simmer sort of film _,_ taking every moment of its nearly two hours to bring its story of two families connected by tragedy to a boil. But it takes just 20 seconds to _expose --_ literally, expose -- its star, Charlize Theron. Oh, yes, the gorgeous former model is naked. But the scene leaves you far more uneasy than aroused. As mysterious loner Sylvia, Theron cuts a harsh, flawed figure in the cold, bluish light of morning. "Get out," she snaps to a man sleeping in her bed. And she doesn't bother saying goodbye when he leaves.

"When I read the script I thought it was a great opening to the character," Theron says of her stark introduction, which might have caused any other actress to lobby for a rewrite. "You start asking questions immediately as soon as you see it. . . . 'Who is this woman? Who would be that cold to the man that she wakes up with?' "

Playing unlikable characters is nothing new to Theron, who won an Oscar in 2004 for her physically and emotionally unflattering turn as serial killer Aileen Wuornos in _Monster_. The role of Sylvia gave Theron a chance to star in the directorial debut of Arriaga, who is best known as the screenwriter for the acclaimed indies _Amores Perros_ and _21 Grams_. Interwoven story lines and an aura of mystery around characters and their hidden emotional baggage -- Arriaga's stock in trade -- ran through those films, as they do in _The Burning Plain_. The movie, which opens Friday, cuts between the story of Sylvia and that of two families living in a small town near the border of New Mexico and Mexico. Another plotline involves a plane crash that leaves a little girl facing the possibility of losing her only caregiver, her father.

"Guillermo really writes how we think," Theron says. Publicly, Sylvia is a graceful, whip-smart restaurateur, but privately she is drowning in a sea of self-destruction. "How can she run a restaurant and behave how she is?" Theron asks. "She just had a terrible accident happen in her life, and it really sort of marked her. I like that not everything is answered. . . . You want to live in a society that is dealt with and done with, and that's not life. Life is not done with and dealt with."

Theron is often as terse as her character when talking about her life and her work, which lately has included producing a slate of movies, television shows, video games and even stage musicals under the banner of her production company Springbok Productions. And there is also an animation division called Denver and Delilah Animation (named for her two dogs).

Ask her what a day in the life of Charlize Theron is like (perhaps expecting an answer that involves tales of spending time with her longtime husband and business partner, Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain) and she'll answer: "I work. I have an office. I have a whole team of people. . . . I don't ever want to have my days pass me and be 80 and go, '[Expletive], where did it all go?' "

The South Africa native softens a bit when asked about her Africa Outreach Project, which began as an HIV-AIDS education project in her homeland back in 2001 and has since broadened to include computer training and infrastructure projects, which she sees as a natural extension of HIV prevention, and has raised tens of millions of dollars in its lifetime. "I'm very passionate about it," she says, ticking off a list of the organization's accomplishments, including planning soccer fields for children in conjunction with the World Cup's arrival in the nation next year.

So what's next for Theron the actress? Are there dream roles? No, she answers flatly. Roles couldn't matter less. "For me, it's about the story," she says. "I think it always has to go back to stories. As an actor, you're just a canvas to tell it." There is no recipe for choosing a role, she explains. "If something stays with me, or it's a world that I'm interested in, or people I'm interested in . . . when those things feel right, you just have to believe and jump off the cliff."

* * *

"Mel Gibson Sells UK Arm Of His Icon Group", _Deadline Hollywood_ , November 1, 2009 **  
  
**Mel Gibson has always been better known as a movie star and film director than as a Hollywood mogul. Yet he has been at the head of LA-based Icon Group with partner Bruce Davey since 1989. Today they announced the sale of the UK operations of their film and entertainment business to the US-based industrial group, Access Industries. The deal includes Icon’s international sales company, the distribution operation based in the UK, and the Majestic Films & Television library. (But not the LA operation Icon Productions, which Gibson still owns outright with Davey who relocated to Australia, and which has mainly reconsolidated there.) The UK business will continue to operate under the Icon name but former UK Film Council chairman Stewart Till will be appointed Icon UK’s new CEO as well as an equity holder in the business.  
  
Commenting on the deal in a press statement, Stewart Till said: “This acquisition is a fantastic first step in our plans to build an international distribution network that will be operational in all the key major territories around the world, including Eastern Europe and Asia.”  
  
Added Bruce Davey, Chairman, Icon Group, “We’re very pleased to have done a deal with Stewart and Access and to know that the Icon brand will be in such experienced hands. We look forward to continuing a close relationship between the Icon UK and Australian businesses and keenly anticipate the company’s expansion plans into other territories.”  
  
Icon UK and Icon Australia/Icon Film Distribution will continue to acquire territory distribution rights together. LA-based Icon Productions has also entered into a first-look deal with Icon UK. Icon Distribution’s upcoming UK slate includes _Paranormal Activity_ , _The Box_ , _Nowhere Boy, The Road_ , _Edge of Darkness_ (which stars Mel Gibson), _Precious_ and _A Single Man_. Icon's Australian division also is an exhibition company, after purchasing Dendy Cinemas, and likewise also makes deals to show and distribute films not made by Icon Productions. The Australian website boasts the following: "Since 2002, Icon Film Distribution releases 10-15 hand-picked films per annum. Drawing on its expertise in script analysis and development, Icon sources content from the world's most prestigious film festivals, international film markets, and directly from producers. Icon Film is an 'all rights' business that distributes content throughout theatrical, home entertainment, ancillary, pay per view, digital as well as pay and free television channels."  
  
Unlike most other independent production companies, Icon internally funds most of its development and production costs, allowing it to retain creative control of its projects. Icon Productions films include _Hamlet, Forever Young, The Man Without a Face, Airborne, Maverick, Immortal Beloved_ , the Academy Award winning _Braveheart,_ _On Our Selection, Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, 187, FairyTale: A True Story, Payback, An Ideal Husband, Felicia’s Journey, What Women Want, We Were Soldiers, The Singing Detective, Paparazzi, The Passion of the Christ, Seraphim Falls_ , and _Apocalypto._ Icon largely shuttered its North American production and distribution divisions, as well as its television efforts, after Gibson's 2006 DUI and anti-Semitic rants while being arrested. A highly-publicized deal with Springbok Productions was cancelled as well.  
  
Access Industries is a U.S.-based privately held industrial group founded in 1986 by Len Blavatnik. Its holdings span three sectors: natural resources and chemicals; telecommunications and media; and real estate. Access Industries’ holdings in the media sector currently include majority stakes in Perform Group (the online sports broadcaster), TopUpTV (a UK-based digital terrestrial TV service provider) and Amedia (an entertainment TV content developer and producer in Russia) together with minority stakes in RGE Group (an Israeli TV production company) and Warner Music Group (one of the world’s leading recorded music labels and music publishers).

* * *

“How Bernie Made Basket Cases of his Clients’ Accounts,” by John Dodge, _Securities Industry Technology_ , November 2, 2009

Two years ago, Bob McMahon wondered why antiquated systems at Bernard L. Madoff Investment Services weren't replaced with more modern and efficient off-the-shelf systems. The Madoff systems were expensive to maintain and made it difficult to grow the business by expanding into new classes of securities. McMahon's job: To organize and document projects that would create custom technology for the firm's trading operations. On December 11, 2008, he got his answer.

That day, Bernie Madoff was arrested and charged with stealing tens of billions of his clients' money over decades. McMahon knew if "technologists" replaced the proprietary systems with more modern and open computers, they would have invariably found the absence of data on countless stock trades that supposedly took place. In a sense, the preservation of old computer technology helped Madoff successfully go undetected for years until his massive Ponzi scheme collapsed that day.

Over the past six weeks, Securities Industry News has dug into and beyond the court records to construct the most extensive report yet on how Madoff actually operated: The systems and technology he and underlings used to create-or fake-the most detailed set of customer accounts underlying a fraud in the history of the securities industry.

Included are the first details of a declaration filed Oct. 16 on behalf of the court-appointed trustee, Irving Picard, investigating the case, which describes how the real and the fake trading floors worked. And why the securities investors believed they owned are never going to be declared "missing." The answer: Because they never existed in the first place.

On the eve of the first anniversary of Madoff's arrest, this then is the story of how the legitimacy of his House 5 was turned into the bastard product of House 17-used solely to create and maintain an alternate reality of trades never made.

But it's more than that. It's also a cautionary tale to information technology managers and executives at shops up and down Wall Street. If you think something is amiss, don't let it rest. Do your own investigation. Before the company you work for turns out to be missing as well.

LEGITIMATE AND ILLEGITIMATE

"I asked myself how Bernie could have hidden and maintained this for so long. A lot of it was done because he had proprietary and legacy systems. And he relied on IT people he hired and paid," to not upset the status quo, says McMahon. As a project manager, he always felt like an odd duck at Bernard L. Madoff Investment Services (BLMIS), an outfit which seemed to lack standards and procedures routine at former employers of his such as the International Securities Exchange and CheckFree Investment Services (now Fiserv, Inc.). Little was documented and the company seemed to be overwhelmed keeping the older systems from breaking down.

"I immediately recognized there was massive institutional chaos in the way the place was managed. No one found value in participating in project management meetings or in writing things down. There was no documentation," says McMahon, today an operational performance consultant for Standard & Poors.

McMahon lasted less than a year at Madoff's firm. He was hired in February 2007, by long-time BLMIS chief information officer Elizabeth Weintraub. She died in September of that year. Differences over updating the systems and formalizing procedures with Weintraub's two successors led to his dismissal the following January, by McMahon's account.

Nader Ibrahim, who was on the support desk from 2000 to 2003, confirmed that the atmosphere in the BLMIS IT department was often tense and unusual. "We did not have titles, which was definitely suspicious to me. We all knew who each other worked for, but nobody knew what the other person was doing," he said. "Everything was on a need-to-know basis. There was a lot of secrecy." But there were no real secrets about Madoff's purported trading for thousands of investment advisory clients because investigators say they have discovered it never happened.

It's not as if Madoff didn't have a real trading floor. Madoff's legitimate market-making business was located on the 19th floor of 885 Third Ave., in New York, using one IBM Application System/400 computer IBM Application System/400 computer, known within the firm as "House 5.'' BLMIS' information technology operation was located on the 18th floor, where McMahon had his cube and was supposed to organize and document projects involving custom technology for the trading operation.

On the 17th floor? The fake trading floor where a second IBM AS/400 known internally as "House 17" processed historical price information on securities allegedly bought for clients. The end result was phony trade confirmations and wholly manufactured - but official-looking - statements for 4903 investment advisory clients.

OPEN AND CLOSED

Madoff's legitimate traders used a mix of green-screen and "M2" Windows-based desktop computers. These ran in-house trading software referred to as MISS, which McMahon recalled standing for something like Madoff Investment Systems and Services. The internally-named and developed M2s ran MISS as a Windows application and were used by younger traders who wanted familiar software instead of the rigid green screen system, developed around 1985, where only text appeared on screen and instructions were in almost cryptic codes entered into command lines.

Support for House 5 was almost like that of a large investment bank's support of its trading operations. Nothing was too good, in theory, for the Madoff trading operation on the 19th floor. Even if it was not necessary. "Madoff did not buy anything off the shelf. The IT team was doing proprietary software development. Maybe JPMorgan Chase needs all this heavy technology, but a hedge fund with 120 people doesn't have to be in systems development," said McMahon, adding that a similarly-sized firm might have a half dozen IT people. Both McMahon and Ibrahim pegged the number of people actively supporting technology at BLMIS at between 40 and 50.

But large staff and support for House 5 has not thrown off investigators. Court-appointed trustee Irving Picard, who is charged with liquidating Madoff's remaining assets, has instead focused on "House 17,'' where the daily administration of the Ponzi scheme was executed. Picard hired an investigator, Joseph Looby, an accounting forensics expert who probably knows the most about the technology that aided Madoff in stealing client funds other than former members of Madoff's staff. Looby is an expert in electronic fraud and senior managing partner with FTI Consulting Inc. in New York.

Looby's 20-page declaration on Picard's behalf with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for Southern District of New York on Oct. 16 amounts to the deepest examination yet of the foundational technology behind Madoff's fraud. The declaration seeks to deny paying Madoff's victims based on their last statements, dated Nov. 30, 2008, because the values stated were based on investments that were allegedly never bought or sold (see graphic, below).

Reached in his Times Square office, Looby, like Picard, said he could not elaborate on his examination of "House 17. "I'd love to, but it's an active investigation," he said, after filing the affidavit. But in the declaration, he reported that "House 5" supported Madoff's market-making operation and was networked to third parties outside the firm that would logically support a trading operation. One, for example, was the depository and clearing firm Depository Trust Clearing Corp. (DTCC).

"[House 5] was an AS/400, consistent with a legitimate securities trading business," Looby wrote. In the declaration, he often compares House 5's legitimacy to House 17's illegitimacy. House 17, for reasons that are now obvious, was shut off to anyone but Madoff's former chief finance officer and right-hand-man Frank DiPascali Jr. as well as any accomplices. DiPascali sits in a New York jail awaiting sentencing after pleading guilty to 10 felony counts on Aug. 11. He faces 125 years and his sentencing is scheduled for May 2010. In the interim, investigators are hoping to get his cooperation to implicate others.

"They want to squeeze him for more than what he's giving now so he can avoid 125 years in prison," said Erin Arvedlund, author of _Too Good to be True: The Rise and Fall of Bernie Madoff_. The former reporter for Barron's in a widely-cited 2001 story challenged Madoff's implausible if not impossible returns and asked why hundreds of millions in uncollected commissions were left on the table. It appears now there were no trades made, from which to derive commissions. "[House 17] was a closed system, separate and distinct from any computer system utilized by the other BLMIS business units; consistent with one designed to mass produce fictitious customer statements," according to Looby's declaration. House 17's expressed purpose was to maintain phony records and crank out millions of phony IRS 1099s on capital gains and dividends, trade confirmations, management reports and customer statements.

"The AS/400 was like a giant Selectric typewriter. When you're making up numbers like that, you're using your computer as a typewriter," said computer consultant Judith Hurwitz, president of Hurwitz & Associates in Newton, Massachusetts. Indeed, the Application System/400 is a multipurpose server that's very good at printing. IBM publishes several technical overviews for IT professionals known as "RedBooks" on the AS/400's extensive printing capabilities and also offers printing and forms design software for it. The AS/400, launched in 1988, is one of IBM's most popular servers ever. Over the years, it has morphed into the iSeries, then the System i and has since been merged into the Power Systems line, which provides servers to companies "of all sizes." At IBM, the AS/400 "is like the Energizer Bunny," said a spokesman.

ON THE HOUSE

House 17 held 4659 active accounts overseen by DiPascali where Madoff purportedly executed a “split strike conversion” strategy on large cap stocks. In basic terms, it’s a “collar,” putting a floor and a ceiling on returns. A floor on potential losses is created by purchasing a put on a stock. The sale of a call then puts a ceiling on the returns. The “split” in “strike” prices is considered a “vacation trade.’’ The trader doesn’t worry about what happens until the expiration dates on the put or call options arrive. The strategy was allegedly applied for the thousands of customers on “baskets” of large cap stocks. According to the faked BLMIS statements, these accounts typically yielded 11 to 17 percent returns annually.

Another 244 “non-split strike” accounts produced phony returns in excess of 100 percent and were managed by BLMIS employees other than DiPascali. The phrase “Managed by BLMIS employees” discovered and used by investigators is one of many strong indications that more were in on the fraud than just Madoff, DiPascali and BLMIS auditor David G. Friehling, the only ones charged so far. Friehling has pled not guilty. Meanwhile, Looby notes that 25 individuals worked for the investment advisory arm of BLMIS.

The “non-split strike” accounts included many “long time” Madoff customers and feeder funds such as those operated by Stanley Chais or Jeffry Picower and against whom Picard has filed civil suits to reclaim billions in profits alleged to be illegal. Picower of Palm Beach was found dead in his pool Oct. 25. Chais maintains he’s innocent.

In the declaration, Looby repeatedly asserts that no securities were ever bought for BLMIS investment advisory customers. Proceeds sent in by clients for that purpose were “instead primarily used to make distributions to or payments on behalf of, other investors as well as withdrawals and payments to Madoff family members and employees,” the declaration states.

Here’s how it worked: BLMIS employees fed the AS/400 constantly with stock data, enough to support trades that would satisfy the expectations promised to Madoff’s thousands of eventual victims. To support the fantasy returns, so-called “baskets” of S&P 100 stocks would be bought and sold, on behalf of clients. Looby did not specify the typical size of a basket, but they were proportional to the proceeds a client had remitted to BLMIS.

“If a basket was $400,000 and a customer had $800,000 available, two baskets of securities and options would be purportedly “purchased” for the account,” Looby wrote. The types of stocks can be seen in a Madoff statement. Proceeds from purported basket sales existed only on “House 17” and on the paper it put out, which indicated the funds were put into safe U.S. Treasury bonds. Meanwhile, funds remitted by clients were being diverted to a JPMorgan Chase & Co. bank account known as “703.”

A sharp eye could have detected that funds weren’t where they were supposed to be: 2008 customer statements showed funds in a “Fidelity Spartan U.S. Treasury Money Market Fund” that hadn’t been offered since 2005. The fabulous returns had lulled BLMIS clients to sleep. “You don’t ask questions when you’re up,” said McMahon.

While some trading data was input by hand, DiPascali cleverly used “essentially a mail merge program” to replicate the same stock trading information across multiple accounts, according to the declaration. Stocks in a basket were “priced” after the market closed (i.e., with the knowledge of the prior published price history). Customer statements were then fabricated by BLMIS staff on House 17 which appeared to outsiders to keep track of customer investments and funds in a manner typical of any investment advisor. “BLMIS staff confirmed it, the system facilitated it and consistent returns could not have been achieved without it,” Looby’s declaration states.

Indeed, the customer statements had been perfected as an instrument in the deception. Madoff investor Ronnie Sue Ambrosino, a former computer analyst who ironically had worked on an AS/400, told Securities Industry News that she never suspected a thing. After all, the Securities and Exchange Commission had given Madoff a clean bill of health on several occasions since 1992 by not digging deeply into his operations or just plain neglect. “The statements were always perfect, neat and immaculately presented. They came on time and everything was like clockwork,” said Ambrosino, 56, a victim and now activist representing a group of about 400 Madoff investors. She bristles when the AS/400 is called old or outdated. “I know the 400 and it’s a pretty powerful machine.”

99.9 PERCENT FAKE

It was powerful enough to convince investors that whatever proceeds they sent to Madoff were being invested in the stocks cited on their statements. “Key punch operators were provided with the relevant basket information that they manually entered into House 17. The basket trade was then routinely replicated in selected BLMIS split strike customer accounts automatically and proportionally according to each customer’s purported net equity,” Looby’s declaration says.

The situation was largely the same for non-split strike clients except that the purported trades were in single equities, not baskets. “Thousands of documents including customer statements, IA (investment advisory) staff notes, account folders and programs in the AS/400 were reviewed, and these documents confirm the fact that such statements were prepared on an account-by-account basis (i.e. not basket trading),” Looby wrote.

Looby verified that trades between 2002 and 2008 were phantom by cross-checking with various clearing houses such as DTCC, Clearstream Banking S.A. in Luxembourg, the Chicago Board of Options Exchange (CBOE) and four other clearing firms. He also compared the cleared trades on the AS/400 “House 5” and “99.9 percent” of the fake trades on “House 17” did not match. The only connection he found is what looked like a small portion of a single client’s trades, which were directed by the client and recorded on House 5.

Madoff employees monitored the “baskets” for split strike accounts in an Excel spreadsheet to make sure “the prices chosen after-the-fact obtained returns that were neither too high or low.” However, such monitoring was far from perfect. Looby cited several examples where daily trading volumes at BLMIS exceeded the entire daily volume for several stocks. For instance, Madoff reported the purchase of 17.8 million shares of ExxonMobil on Oct. 16, 2002. This amounted to 131 percent of the company’s trading volume for that day. BLMIS’s actual ExxonMobil holdings that October were verified by the DTCC at 5730 shares. Similar discrepancies for Amgen, Microsoft and Hewlett Packard were found on Nov. 30, 2008, the date for the final batch of BLMIS customer statements, as it turned out. BLMIS data for options puts and calls was even more blatantly unreal. On Oct. 11, 2002, Looby found that BLMIS “applied an imaginary basket to 279 accounts with a volume of 82,959 OEX(S&P 100 options) calls and 82,959 puts.” That amounted to 13 times the OEX volume at the CBOE that day.

Many following the case speculate that other criminal defendants will be named. Arvedlund says prosecutors from the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York (Lev Dassin) office have to assemble strong cases and that takes time. “Prosecutors don’t want to get it wrong, indict other family members and then have them found not guilty,” says Arvedlund. A spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York declined comment.

However, it’s looking increasingly likely that others beyond the first three will eventually be hauled into criminal court. Picard has already tightened the noose in civil court, attempting to reclaim billions from Madoff family members and close associates.

Recent legal documents in the case tangentially and directly implicate others, either talking about yet-to-be-named “co-conspirators” or identifying them outright. A 264-page lawsuit filed by investor Jay Wexler on Oct. 20 accuses Bernard Madoff’s assistant and recruiter Annette Bongiorno and her staff with researching stock and options data “to generate tickets showing fictitious trades.” No response from Bongiorno could be obtained or found by press time.

Also surfacing in Wexler’s lawsuit are explosive allegations about decades of “rampant” drug use and wild parties in the BLMIS offices. They are not far off the mark, according to Ibrahim. “I saw it all around me. Once a month, Bernie would throw a party for the systems guys and things would get a little out of bounds,” he said, adding that most of the alleged partying was after work. But “it was still a normal work environment” during the day, Ibrahim told Securities Industry News. In his expansive lawsuit for which he demands a jury trial, Wexler identifies 19 defendants including banks, auditors, former feeder funds, several Madoff family members and associates, former BLMIS employees and even an insurance company.

Looby’s declaration has several references to unnamed accomplices that would seem to dovetail with Wexler’s accusations. “To create the illusion that these stocks had been purchased or sold, BLMIS employees would use the AS/400 and its software programs to fabricate customer statements.” Prosecutors have a mountain of evidence and they have leverage with the 52-year-old DiPascali. “We know he did not do it alone,” says Arvedlund, the author. And he has expressed a willingness to help.

His confession in court Aug. 11 began “…I helped Bernie Madoff, and other people, carry out the fraud that hurt thousands of people.” At the end of his confession and just prior to pleading to be released on bail, he said: “I hope my help will bring some small measure of comfort to those who have been harmed. I apologize for this catastrophe…” Prosecutors argued for DiPascali’s release so he could help them sort through the AS/400 and 6000 boxes of evidence that occupy a half a floor in a New York building. They failed and he was sent to jail to await sentencing.

As for Bernie Madoff, the fraud’s chief architect, he’s not talking and could take his secrets to his grave. “Boy, that would be a shame,” says Arvedlund.

* * *

Springbok/Disney Joint Statement, PRNewswire, November 9, 2009

After several decades worth of pestering and questions, it has been announced Disney's 1946 feature film _Song of the South_ , the live action/animation hybrid based on Joel Chandler Harris' stories and the basis for the hit attraction Splash Mountain, will receive its first official home video release in full in North America in March. Springbok Productions will officially handle the marketing, advertising, special features, and restoration of the film from the original master reels, while Buena Vista Home Entertainment will remain in charge in distribution, as has been the case with each film.  
  
The film, which was the first blend of live action and animation in cinematic history, has long been a flashpoint of controversy, regarding the treatment of the African-American characters, its depiction of life during the Reconstruction-era South, as well as regarding how African-American oral tradition and dialect was handled. Much like _The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn_ , and early films like _Birth of a Nation_ and _Gone With the Wind_ , the movie has long been dissected and analyzed to death, with scores of admirers and detractors from all walks of life, and been in the center of a debate regarding censorship and political correctness. The film is also of course similarly afflicted by two tropes in cinematic storytelling that have long been condemned: the "Magical Negro", and the "white savior narrative", claimed to be showcased in films like _Mississippi Burning_ , _Driving Miss Daisy_ , _The Legend of Bagger Vance_ and _Dances with Wolves_.  
  
"Naturally, when faced with a quandary like this, as how to release something so dogged by bad press and word of mouth, you have to walk quite a fine line," Jennifer Todd muses. "Our idea is to release the film, to showcase a certain point in cinematic history, especially on a technical level, but also demonstrate everything in a proper context, especially for children, who might have a tendency to internalize the messages so literally and end up very confused. After all, Disney has had little asides in their past films with depictions of other cultures that were less than enlightened, intended at the time as throwaway jokes, that rub modern viewers the wrong way, but they don't particularly detract from said film as a whole. The main difference with this movie is that it's washed completely in that depiction, so it can color a viewer's entire experience."  
  
The three-disc, DVD/Blu-ray hybrid set is crammed full of plenty of special features, made under Springbok's direction, besides the usual introduction and disclaimer given to the like of old Warner Bros. cartoons of the period. Entire featurettes about the history of the production, how it has been received, why certain depictions are considered wrong today, and the steps made towards tolerance and understanding in the modern world. These include interviews and commentary with historians, sociologists, and various figures, including actors and filmmakers associated with other films, such as the main figures behind _Schindler's List_ : Steven Spielberg, Liam Neeson, Ralph Fiennes and Ben Kingsley. "Our hope is that with this release, we can show and start a dialogue that is quite necessary," Whoopi Goldberg, who plays a big part in the special features and has long advocated for _Song of the South_ to be released, states firmly. "It's time to open up."


	4. 2010-2014

"Springbok's Enima Division Revs Up, Admits _Alita_ Delay", Anime News Network, June 8, 2010  
  
By this point, Springbok Productions has proven itself a formidable powerhouse, and its division focused on anime adaptations, Enima, has already more than earned its stripes. Currently, the division is filming the first installment in an intended franchise adaptation of _Sailor Moon_ in Tokyo, with intent to release by DreamWorks Pictures via Disney's Touchstone Pictures banner sometime in 2012, just in time for the original series' 20th anniversary. " _Sailor Moon_ has always been a landmark in anime and manga," Jennifer Todd relates. "Our intention has always been to do justice to it, especially because it is also a landmark in female empowerment and achievement. And with the likes of Diablo Cody working with (original creator) Naoko Takaeuchi on the script, Patty Jenkins directing, and Kim Basinger playing Queen Beryl, we've got quite a vehicle to attract the old fans and bring in new ones."  
  
Springbok is also deep in pre-production for a franchise adaptation of Rumiko Takahashi's _Inuyasha_ , co-produced by Gale Anne Hurd and Jerry Bruckheimer and directed by Gore Verbinski, to be distributed by Paramount in North America and 20th Century Fox internationally. Todd admits that there is still not a lot of firm information to hand out. "The script by Gale, Jonathan Hensleigh and Rumiko is still being worked over, and we're probably going to hire someone to further polish it. Nic Cage really is psyching himself to play the villain, Naraku, but we haven't gotten a firm commitment as of yet, to say nothing of the fact that no one else has been cast yet. We also don't have a release date in mind yet, but we're certainly getting there."  
  
Enima is also continuing to help with Disney's English dubs of the films of Studio Ghibli, of which Springbok recently bought a 20 percent stake to create a North American division. Of special importance is the upcoming film _The Wind Rises_ , which acclaimed director Hayao Miyazaki has announced to be his last film. The story is a fictionalized account of the life of Jiro Horikoshi, the inventor of the Mitsubishi Zero, the creation of a peaceful man who despised war but wanted to create flying machines he could be proud of.  
  
Of course, of bigger importance is a project Enima has been circling around for several years now. Back in 2005, Springbok announced its intent to co-produce an adaptation of _Battle Angel Alita_ , written and directed by James Cameron, who had announced his interest in such a project back in 2000. However, Cameron chose instead to focus on _Avatar_ , which ended up becoming the biggest box-office success of all time. So where does this leave the _Battle Angel_ film? "Jim hasn't forgotten about that at all, he's still just as passionate as ever," Todd remarks. "But he's also gotten a bee in his bonnet about wanting to continue the story of _Avatar_ , in addition to interests in doing an adaptation of _The Informationist_ as well as something about free diving. He's got a lot of irons in the fire, and his head goes into many different directions at once. So, this project is going to take some time yet to come to fruition, but when it does, we'll be there." This is hardly the first time Cameron has had different projects in the works at once, and he's let some go to other directors while keeping a producer's and/or writer's credit. A prime example being the 2002 film _Solaris_ , based on the novel of the same name, which ended up directed by Steven Soderbergh. Cameron and his Lightstorm Entertainment production company also co-produced the recent Springbok project _Prometheus_ , a prequel to _Alien_ directed by original director Ridley Scott.

* * *

"Bebo Sold by AOL After Just Two Years," BBC News Website, June 17, 2010

Internet company AOL has sold Bebo, the social networking site it bought two years ago for $850 million (then £417 million). Criterion Capital Partners, a small private investment firm, announced that it had bought the business, but did not disclose the amount paid. However, analysts suspect it to be just a fraction of the price paid by AOL in 2008.

Since then, Bebo has struggled to compete effectively against social networking rivals such as Facebook. Earlier this year, AOL announced plans to sell or shut down Bebo because it was unable to provide the "significant investment" needed to prevent its decline as a business.

The BBC's technology correspondent Rory Cellan-Jones called AOL's decision to buy Bebo "one of the worst deals ever made in the dotcom era". "The extraordinary thing is the deal was made years after the dotcom crash which was supposed to have taught the industry lessons," he said. "The interesting thing is that the founder, Michael Birch, walked away with $300 million - it's the art of timing."

Active user base   
Criterion Capital's plans for Bebo are unclear, and the company was not immediately available to give further details. But the new owners are believed to see significant potential in the business. Bebo's headquarters is set to remain in San Francisco, at least in the near term, but job losses have not been ruled out.

In a statement, Adam Levin, Criterion Capital's managing partner, said there was plenty to be positive about. "The young, highly active user base, revenue history, presence in countries throughout the world and solid technical infrastructure make it an attractive media platform," he said.

* * *

"Rapid Growth as Springbok Goes on Purchase Spree", _Financial Times_ , June 18, 2010  
  
Springbok Productions' meteoric rise continues unabated, as the success of their recent stock offerings on the NYSE, NASDAQ, Toronto Stock Exchange, London Stock Exchange, Euronext, Frankfurt Stock Exchange, National Stock Exchange of India, Australian Stock Exchange, Hong Kong Stock Exchange and Tokyo Stock Exchange, along with Kurt Cobain and Charlize Theron's individual investments in Planet Hollywood, Miami Subs Pizza & Grill, Roadhouse Grill, Chipotle Mexican Grill, Dan Marino's Town Tavern, and Blackstone Restaurant Group (Michael Jordan's restaurant properties) give the company a fresh infusion of $20-30 billion to sit on and put to good use. And it appears that they fully intend to branch out in many ways that will add to their profitability, starting with paying off the debt they incurred with a series of bond sales last year, which also does takes care of that debt well before the maturity date. Springbok CFO James W. Keyes crowed about this fact. "Let it be known that Springbok takes care of its financial house in a responsible manner." Keyes also stated that Springbok will never commit stock buybacks in order to boost its position. "It's simply not fair to the public to use our money to repurchase stock. We'll take our lumps, whatever those might be, and live with it."  
  
Springbok has recently made two significant purchases to add to the company's assets. First it bought Revolution Studios, the production company/financing group responsible for much of Sony's output since 2000 and founded by former 20th Century Fox and Walt Disney Studios head Joe Roth, for a whopping $450 million. Revolution Studios' output has long been considerably profitable for Sony, if very few of them were also critical hits, Springbok now will own all home video library rights for those titles, as well as international rights to the library of Morgan Creek, which Revolution purchased before it went dormant. Springbok thus holds international library rights to films like _Young Guns I_ and _II, Dead Ringers, Freejack, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, The Last of the Mohicans, Major League_ and _Ace Ventura: Pet Detective_. They also convinced Lionsgate to part with Artisan Entertainment, having purchased it from them for $375 million. Artisan was considered a mini-major in its own right up until Lionsgate's purchase of it, and also owned the libraries of Republic Pictures, EMI Pictures, Hemdale Film Corporation, and Carolco Pictures.  
  
For much cheaper prices, Springbok is also entering deals for libraries only of certain other companies, among them Rysher Entertainment and the Disney-owned Caravan Pictures, which was founded by Joe Roth and Roger Birnbaum in 1992 and shuttered in 1999, after Birnbaum left to found Spyglass Entertainment. It has also emerged that some of the film producing figures Springbok has brought on board have gifted their libraries/investments to Springbok, but until now that was never made public. Such gifts include Jerry Weintraub Productions, Azoff Entertainment, Interscope Communications, the production credits of David V. Picker, the Kushner-Locke Company, Jon Peters and Peter Guber's Mandalay Pictures, and Quentin Tarantino's 1990s filmography, as gifted to the company by the director himself.  
  
Picker, one of the main figures responsible for the gifting, is quite sanguine. "Any company worth their salt works to expand their library rights. Springbok has shown themselves to be not only financially sound stewards, but artistically responsible ones as well. Libraries are lucrative investments and there is so much money that comes on the home video, broadcast and streaming rights."  
  
But this also does not seem to be the end of it. The Revolution Studios and Artisan deals now position Springbok to be a film distributor along with production company, and it appears they are now making entreaties regarding acquisitions of cinema chains to enter the exhibition business as well. "Such deals would not just be for us to control the box office and show our films at the expense of others," Picker reiterates. "If anything, we'd make it easier for any film project to be shown on the silver screen, no matter how decidedly out there or un-commercial it would be. We'd also make incentivized rates to make better deals and ensure these people aren't getting ripped off, and we'd operate quite differently from major chains like Regal, AMC and Cinemark in that regard."

* * *

"Local Autistic Man Assaults Store Owner, Attempts Suicide By Cop", _Daily Progress_ , June 20, 2010  
  
Christian Weston Chandler, age 27, of Ruckersville, is currently in the ICU of the University of Virginia Health System after a truly bizarre encounter with law enforcement yesterday. Police were dispatched to The GAMe PLACe, a local hobby store known for containing comics and trading card games as well as hosting card game matches of various types, when Mr. Chandler proceeded to lunge at the store's owner, Michael Snyder, knocking him against the register desk, punching his head several times and making Mr. Snyder's head be battered against the desk. An employee called in the attack, and the police were mobilized at once.  
  
Mr. Chandler, also having left various obscene messages in graffiti around the store, attempted to escape in his car before the officers arrived, but did not get far. He then moved to run on foot, but was easily caught. Mr. Chandler then tried to assault the various officers, complete with reaching for one of their guns, and managed to grab the handle of one before another officer pistol whipped him. His forehead smacked against the pavement quite hard, ensuring that he would be knocked unconscious and suffering a concussion as well. Mr. Snyder was also rushed to the same hospital, having suffered a broken neck, a broken nose, and even a broken jaw and TMJ.  
  
"Michael Snyder is a helpless and undeserving victim of an unwarranted attack," his lawyer said to the local press that evening. "We intend for Mr. Chandler to be held fully responsible for his heinous actions. This is just the culmination of several years' worth of harassment." Employees of The GAMe PLACe state that Mr. Chandler was a former patron of the store, who was banned by Mr. Snyder two years ago. "Chris Chandler was an absolute obnoxious, overbearing mental case when he was allowed here," an employee states. "He would always come to play card games here, but he was driving business away. He screamed at his opponents whenever he lost, and was given to making racist and homophobic comments quite openly. He also loved to bring his game consoles over, plug them into the TV, and hog all the attention, speaking loudly to himself all the while. Michael had had enough of his nonsense, and Chris didn't take it well, to say the least."  
  
Apparently, Mr. Chandler had been making various attempts to be allowed to come back to the store. Back in April, he harangued Mr. Snyder directly, and when he was not allowed back in, he left in a huff, giving an anti-Semitic exclamation as he did so. Mr. Chandler had also made an audio recording of his encounter and uploaded it to YouTube, before it was taken down the next day. In fact, Mr. Chandler was found to have made a variety of videos for YouTube that were just as quickly removed, in which he harangued "damn dirty trolls" in incoherent, rambling speeches. Apparently, Mr. Chandler was a celebrity of sorts on the Web, having been talked about on the now-defunct website Encyclopedia Dramatica, a hate site community modeled on Wikipedia, with "articles" dedicated to harassing and "doxxing" individuals of minority groups, especially those with mental disabilities, for their own amusement. Mr. Chandler also created a bizarre comic series called _Sonichu_ , a hybrid of Pokemon and Sonic the Hedgehog, in which he also drew and created various horrific acts of violence against law enforcement.  
  
"Christian is a good boy," his mother, Barbara Chandler, states. "All of this is because these people, especially Michael Snyder, just hate the fact that he has autism." Indeed, there are some publicly available documents showing that Mr. Chandler was diagnosed with autism back in the late '80s, but that his parents seem to have done precious little to address the situation. Apparently, Mr. Chandler has not held a job since the fall of 2001, lives on Social Security, and spends his days alone in his room, playing with various toys and video games, browsing on the Web, when not working on his comics. Mrs. Chandler even admits, with pride, that her son was purposefully kept out of special needs classes during elementary school in Greene County, and states, "the Greene County School Board has hated us ever since. They're using all of these despicable figures like Michael Snyder to get even with us with all these trumped up encounters with the law that he's had."  
  
Mr. Chandler was suspended from one year from Piedmont Virginia Community College by the school dean, Mary Lee Walsh, for openly soliciting sexual favors on campus by way of a sign he hung in the hallways. He has also been banned from various locations, including a Wal-Mart, a Target, and the Charlottesville Fashion Square Mall, for soliciting and loitering. His _Sonichu_ comics show a visible contempt for Ms. Walsh and security and law enforcement officials, complete with killing them in grotesque manners. He has also been described as incredibly withdrawn and lonely, openly searching for companionship and romantic attachment, but always seeking them in fairly inappropriate methods. Only the day before the attack, he was spotted attending the family-friendly Fridays After Five concert series at the downtown mall, where he was wearing a shirt stating "I Enjoy Vagina", then pulled that shirt off to show him wearing a muscle bra with "Want Woman!" scrawled on it, and his belly fully exposed for all to see. Many patrons expressed their discomfort seeing Mr. Chandler's appearance at this event.  
  
"This is an example of what happens when those on the autistic spectrum do not receive the care and attention that they need," a former teacher of Nathanael Greene Elementary School, where Mr. Chandler once attended and worked there at that time, replies. "If Christian Chandler's parents had not kept him mainstreamed, but allowed him to attend special needs courses and resources like I and various other teachers had implored them back then, none of this would ever have happened. He could've had a more fulfilling life and found the companionship he longed for, as well as some degree of independence."

* * *

"Gibson Scandal Could Doom His Movie Career," by Steven Zeitchik, _Los Angeles Times_ , July 12, 2010  
  
As Mel Gibson’s legal and publicity problems mount, his prospects for a future in mainstream Hollywood grow dimmer.  
  
Eight minutes of new audio surfaced on Monday capturing Gibson’s angry and expletive-laden rant to ex-girlfriend Oksana Grigorieva. The recording, which appeared on the website Radar Online, follows an earlier release on the site of a tape in which Gibson uses foul and threatening language toward Grigorieva as well as the N-word. Monday’s audio features an increasingly apoplectic Gibson threatening Grigorieva, with whom he’s locked in a child custody battle, yelling at her that she needs a “bat to the side of the head” and that he could put her “in a … rose garden” if he wanted to. (Although the audio has not been independently verified by _The Times_ , no one involved in the incident, including representatives from Gibson’s camp, has called its authenticity into question.)  
  
Interviews with a number of Hollywood talent agents and studio executives on Monday suggest that as a result of these recordings, Gibson has become anathema in the entertainment business; the insiders see little way Gibson would be hired as either an actor or director on any mainstream film.  
  
On Friday, the news broke that Gibson had been dropped by his agency, William Morris Endeavor, around the time that the first reports of a diatribe against Grigorieva surfaced and as his longtime agent and supporter, Ed Limato, lay on his deathbed, both of which may have been factors in the decision.  
  
The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department also has confirmed that it is investigating the actor in a domestic abuse case. In the new recording, which will be added to evidence already being reviewed by detectives, the onetime A-lister seems to acknowledge that he hit Grigorieva, the mother of his child, when he responds to her mention of him hitting her by saying, “you … deserved it.”  
  
Sheriff’s spokesman Steve Whitmore said the investigation would not be affected by Gibson’s celebrity. “First of all there was no favoritism last time [referring to the 2006 Malibu incident]. There is no favoritism this time,” Whitmore said. “We’re just doing our job.” The department faced criticism after Gibson’s 2006 drunk driving arrest after it was suggested that the actor’s anti-Semitic comments be expunged from the arrest report.  
  
On Monday, Gibson’s publicist, Hollywood veteran Alan Nierob, said that his client had no comment on the current scandal.  
  
It’s unlikely, agents in Hollywood said, that Gibson would be signed by another powerhouse Hollywood agency given his current low stock. But at least one smaller agency casually discussed the pros and cons of signing Gibson, an agent at the company said. At a meeting on Monday, the agency’s staff debated whether it was worth the bad PR that would surely accompany such a move.  
  
Experts in crisis public relations said Gibson was in a maelstrom of trouble that would challenge the best of their craft. “He needs to find an appropriate villain in this issue, and as long as he can’t put it on alcohol and drug abuse, he’s going to be the villain,” said Jason Maloni a strategist at the publicity agency Levick Strategic Communications.  
  
But he also said that the actor-director’s career and image were, even after several offenses, not beyond salvaging. “Mel Gibson is first and foremost an artist, and as long as he can produce great work, he’ll have a way forward,” Maloni said, while acknowledging a Catch-22 problem in which Gibson may need to produce good work to resurrect his public image, but it would take a resurrection of his public image before a studio would hire him to work.  
  
Many of Gibson’s allies in Hollywood have remained quiet as the controversy has mushroomed.  
  
On Monday, representatives for Jodie Foster, Gibson’s longtime friend and his director and costar in his new movie _The Beaver_ , said that she was in post-production and unable to comment. A spokeswoman for Graham King, the producer who worked with Gibson on his recent film _Edge of Darkness_ and has been planning a Viking epic that Gibson would direct, said King was on the set of another film and was unavailable to comment.  
  
A spokeswoman for Danny Glover, the often vocal African American actor who costarred with Gibson in the four _Lethal Weapon_ movies — the franchise that, with its biracial pairing, helped shoot Gibson to the top of the action-star A-list — chose not to weigh in. “At this time, Mr. Glover does not have a comment, and there is no statement regarding Mr. Gibson.” When asked if that might change, the representative responded, “The decision is that he will not [comment].”  
  
Experts said that the muted reaction highlighted the fickle nature of Hollywood activism. Although actors often speak out on public injustices — Glover is a U.N. goodwill ambassador to developing countries and is outspoken on racial issues — they often close ranks when one of their own is concerned. “That’s what Hollywood is about, isn’t it? Everyone covers themselves,” said film historian David Thomson.  
  
Gibson has shown a propensity to work in recent months — he returned to acting earlier this year in the crime thriller _Edge of Darkness_ , which performed middlingly at the U.S. box office. He also took a role in Foster’s quirky indie movie _The Beaver_ as a way of casting himself in a different light and is set to appear in _How I Spent My Summer Vacation_ , in which he plays a criminal who, coincidentally, tries to rehabilitate himself.  
  
The status of both films remains in question in the wake of Monday’s startlingly raw audio. The former has U.S. distribution from the standalone studio Summit Entertainment, but industry experts believe the movie could stay on the shelf rather than coming out later this year given the newly created marketing challenges. _Vacation_ has distribution in some overseas markets through Gibson’s own Icon international distribution label but does not yet have a studio home in the U.S. Other projects — particularly the Viking picture, in which Gibson would direct Leonardo DiCaprio in a period drama — were also thrown into question as a result of the scandal.  
  
Gibson can continue making movies through his own Los Angeles-based Icon Productions, which finances movies outside the Hollywood system. He’s also believed to be capable of financing films directly from his own pocket, given residuals on franchises such as _Lethal Weapon_ and the $612-million global success of his self-financed 2004 film _The Passion of the Christ_ — though a divorce from Robyn Gibson, his wife of 28 years and mother to seven of his children, and now potentially more child support payments for his and Grigorieva’s infant daughter, could diminish his personal wealth.  
  
Thomson said that although comebacks are in this country’s DNA, a certain type of scandal could irrevocably ding a public figure, as he believes Woody Allen’s relationship with his former girlfriend’s daughter did for many of the director’s female fans. And in some cases, Thomson added, the damage could be much worse. “The American public is sentimental and fond of forgiving, but it’s not automatic,” he said. “I don’t think O.J. Simpson will ever make another movie.”

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"Roman Polanski Dead from Suicide", ABC News Website, July 16, 2010  
  
Filmmaker Roman Polanski was found dead in the home he'd been staying at in Switzerland from carbon monoxide poisoning yesterday. The 76-year-old director was reclining in a chair, "a peaceful expression on his face," says one of his lawyers. "Emmanuelle (Seigner, his wife and mother of his two children) found him after taking the children to the park. She is absolutely distraught right now, and I don't foresee her returning to her career anytime soon. She certainly wasn't going to work during the time that Roman was to fight in America."  
  
Polanski, the acclaimed auteur of celebrated films such as _Knife in the Water_ , _Cul-de-Sac_ , _Repulsion_ , _Rosemary's Baby_ , _The Tenant_ , _Chinatown_ , _Death and the Maiden_ , _The Ninth Gate_ and _The Pianist_ (which won Best Picture and Best Director), was arrested in Zurich back in September on his way to collect an award, and was being held and refused access to return to his home in France while they were processing a request from the U.S. Department of Justice to have him extradited to serve time for the 1977 statutory rape charge he'd pleaded guilty to some time later, only to flee to Europe before his sentence could be given and carried out. According to a recent HBO documentary, Polanski made the deal to undergo a psychiatric prison stay in exchange for receiving probation as his eventual sentence, but the judge in the case, consumed with seeking glory and fame, decided to dictate the trial, how the attorneys on each side would conduct themselves, and changed his mind, seeking to give Polanski a stiffer sentence. The film and its director, Marina Zenovich, have been roundly criticized as excusing Polanski's conduct and making him as the victim of the piece.  
  
Three days prior to his death, the Swiss authorities announced that they were granting the extradition request, as pundits had long predicted would occur, and that he would be sent to Los Angeles by the end of the month. Polanski sent a message, through his lawyers, that "(he) will continue to fight against this injustice and expose it as the show trial it has been for the last 30 years." Samantha Geimer, the victim in question, has long expressed her support and forgiveness of Polanski, and said at the time, "I don't appreciate what the government has been doing, using its claim of being on behalf of me, to scalp him. I forgave Roman long ago for what he did, and he's made a happy and successful life for himself. As long as he's not over here, in our hair, why should we bother? It's been far too long for any legal justice to actually matter. If you truly want what's best for me, then you'll leave Roman be." For the longest time, Hollywood was in Polanski's corner and also exerting influence to try to arrange a deal where he could return to America, even after the exposure of Harvey Weinstein. But when Bryan Singer and David Geffen also were singled out, the prominent directors and actors that expressed their sympathy up to now switched tack and publicly renounced him.  
  
Polanski was born in Poland, and was herded along with his family into a concentration camp by the Nazis, where he watched them die, a memory that haunted him through his life. After the war, he pursued a passion for filmmaking, and came to America to prove his worth. During the filming of his 1967 horror schlock film _The Fearless Vampire Killers_ , he met the actress Sharon Tate, and they married shortly thereafter. Both of them were expecting their first child when Tate, along with several friends, was murdered by the "Family" of Charles Manson on August 8, 1969. Polanski never seemed to truly get over the loss, and his grief, as well as a newfound cynicism, took over his films, most notably his adaptation of _Macbeth_ and _Chinatown_. In 1977, the actual sexual impropriety occurred during what Polanski claimed was a photo session for _Vogue_ at Jack Nicholson's house, where he drugged Geimer before forcing himself on her.  
  
After fleeing to France, where he lived up until the September 2009 arrest, Polanski continued to throw himself into his career, over a string of hit or miss films, as well as expanding into stage, directing and starring in productions of _Amadeus_ (and losing the film rights to Milos Forman), and directing the original Vienna version of the rock musical _Dance of the Vampires_ , an adaptation of _Vampire Killers_ composed by Jim Steinman and later made successful in America thanks to Springbok Productions. Polanski's last film, _The Ghost Writer_ , starring Ewan McGregor and Pierce Brosnan, involving the titular character getting involved in writing the autobiography of a disgraced former British Prime Minister (clearly modeled on Tony Blair) and discovering disturbing secrets, premiered back in February at the Berlin International Film Festival without Polanski able to attend, and did fairly well in France, Germany and the UK, being a modest box office success without ever running in American theaters, heading straight to video.

* * *

"Springbok and Disney Announce Live Action Partnership for Retellings", by Anne Thompson, _Variety_ , July 20, 2010  
  
Back in March, Disney released a Springbok-produced live action film entitled _Alice in Wonderland_ , which despite the title, was actually a sequel to, and not a remake of, the original animated film. The movie, written by veteran Disney scribe Linda Woolverton and directed by Tim Burton, focused on an Alice in her late teens, who returns to Wonderland after a long, unremembered absence, to find it under the tyranny of the Red Queen, and unwittingly becoming the leader of a revolution to break her control. Starring upstart Mia Wasikowska as Alice, and featuring the likes of Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter, Helena Bonham Carter as the Red Queen, Anne Hathaway as the White Queen, Crispin Glover as the Knave of Hearts, and Alan Rickman as the Caterpillar, the film boasts Burton's signature kooky visuals and a surprisingly mature narrative and subject matter. And while purists were definitely displeased with the movie, the film still received generally positive reviews (earning a 76 on Rotten Tomatoes) and making over $1 billion at the box office.  
  
Buoyed by this success, Springbok and Disney are eager to keep it coming. The two companies have announced a new partnership deal with which they will create new, live action retellings of several of Disney's most popular properties, veering from straight remakes to bold new reinterpretations, and which other production companies are free to join in on through a case by case basis. Among the projects strongly hinted to be in development are a reinterpretation of _Sleeping Beauty_ from the point of view of Maleficent, and a remake of _Cinderella_. It is also confirmed that both are also currently seeking Burton to do a stop-motion remake of his short film _Frankenweenie_ , a project that remains close to his heart.  
  
Disney has dabbled in remakes of past films before, having done a 1994 version of _The Jungle Book_ , a John Hughes-penned version of _101 Dalmatians_ starring Glenn Close in '96 (which spawned its own sequel four years later), a retelling of _The Absent-Minded Professor_ as _Flubber_ starring Robin Williams in '97, a remake of _The Parent Trap_ with Lindsay Lohan playing a dual role in '98, a remake of _Freaky Friday_ starring Lohan and Jamie Lee Curtis in 2003, and several remakes of similar other properties for ABC and The Disney Channel in the '90s. But this is the first time Disney has truly decided to tackle the filmography that makes up what is considered its legacy, films that many consider near perfection and potentially sacrilege to do over again.  
  
"There is actually a good, creative reason to do so," Jennifer Todd, who helped produce _Alice_ , opines. "When you look at the original movies, great as they are, and they definitely are great, there lots of little threads in the stories that aren't explored, things that could really add dimension to the story and the characters, really flesh them out. The types of things that certain trolls on the Internet say are plot holes, even though they aren't, that are too ridiculous to believe, and other similar nitpicks that don't matter. Our idea, going in, is to basically pretend we're actually creating the original version, like we're mapping out these characters, their motivations, and their actions from scratch, and thus bringing a modern sensibility into reflection. It also gives newer generations and newer audiences a window to access these stories, older ones to share their memories and the feelings they had seeing the original versions, and adding lots of new flair to them. Make no mistake, this is not us moving to _replace_ the original films in any way. We would never want anything like that. These films are _complements_ to them, they will reinforce each other and build up each other's popularity. That's why we're doing this."  
  
Even with such films now coming on Disney's plate, the company is hardly relying on what some cynics may call retreading past glories. Their 30-film distribution pact with DreamWorks Pictures through their Touchstone banner will continue to attract fare not directly suited for the family-friendly House of Mouse, as will future projects solely through Touchstone. Disney is also seeking to create other live action films itself that bring fresh success, even if some projects being touted as in development are being dropped (ideas for a fourth _Pirates of the Caribbean_ film and tackling _The Lone Ranger_ have come to nothing), the so-called Marvel Cinematic Universe is about to keep rolling out _Iron Man 2_ and a Captain America film, and while it has remained fallow for a while, Lucasfilm Ltd. is strongly hinted to be revving up for a return to Star Wars sometime soon. Disney continues to seek to blaze new trails with its animated and Pixar slate, with the latest offering, _Tangled_ , a take on Rapunzel, expected to do quite well. The Disney-ABC Television Group is also actively working to keep up beloved programming on their channels and create impactful new shows as well.

* * *

"Springbok's Purchase of Vue and HOYTS Approved, New Division of Company By Territory Goes Into Effect", PRNewswire, July 31, 2010  
  
Today, Springbok Productions' bids to purchase Vue Cinemas in Europe and HOYTS Cinemas in Australia have officially been approved, ensuring that Springbok will now be a true power in the exhibition business, along with the earlier purchases of Muvico and Cobb Theatres in North America. As a result, Springbok is now an official member of the National Association of Theatre Owners, which allows the constant schmoozing at conventions like ShoWest/CinemaCon to become even more effective, in terms of reaching maximum potential for all our films to reach as many screens by our competitors as possible, and to allow impressive, fair-minded deals for all other product on our own screens, allowing as much product as possible to be screened, no matter its commercial prospects.  
  
With the success of Springbok's public stock offerings and side investments bringing fresh billions in revenue, as well as the recent acquisitions that have been made, Springbok is implementing a new shakeup in the corporate structure, to officially divide responsibilities and duties by territory, complete with new offices to match!  
  
Springbok's main business will continue to be located in the North American division. Our official headquarters in Toronto will oversee the full structure of the company, all acquisitions and investments (including the distributor and exhibition work), financing for films, television series and video games by other production companies, and the accounting offices. The main work will continue to be in our L.A. offices at the Playa Vista studio lot, overseeing all creative projects, where most of our executives and employees will report, and the official offices for Denver and Delilah Animation, which also maintains a secondary office at George Lucas' Skywalker Ranch. The 20 percent minority stake in Studio Ghibli alllowed the creation of Studio Ghibli North America, overseeing all the major work on English dubs of their filmography, with our offices located at Pixar headquarters in Emeryville, California. And Exploitation Records continues to host its worldwide headquarters in New York, at the former Trump Tower. Springbok is also looking to buy a property for a secondary studio lot in Atlanta with plans to have it online by the middle of the decade.  
  
All of our new international divisions will handle distribution deals (both for ourselves in making deals with studios to release our work, and being direct distributors whenever needed), and exhibition, where that applies. Springbok Latin America is based at Estudios Churubusco in Mexico City, Springbok UK near Shepperton Studios in London, Springbok Europe in the heart of Paris, Springbok Italy near Cinecitta in Rome, Springbok Africa in Charlize Theron's birthplace of Johannesburg, Springbok MDE in the Media City area of Dubai, Springbok Japan in Tokyo, Springbok China in Beijing, Springbok ANZ in the HOYTS offices in Sydney, Springbok South Asia in Mumbai, and Springbok Southeast Asia in Shah Alam.

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"Springbok Gains New Heavy Hitters, Hooks Up With Johnny Depp," _The Hollywood Reporter_ , August 10, 2010  
  
Springbok Productions announced today that Paula Wagner, Tom Cruise's longtime agent, former Disney executive Nina Jacobson, and former Paramount head Sherry Lansing are officially joining the film division. In addition, their television productions and record label arms are also being shored up by the hiring of former executives Fred Silverman (NBC, CBS, ABC), Anthony Thomopolous (ABC), Lloyd Braun (ABC), Channing Dungey (ABC), Mo Ostin (Warner Bros. Records, DreamWorks Records), Lenny Waronker (Verve Records, Warner Bros. Records, DreamWorks Records), Marylou Badeaux (Warner Bros. Records) and Kaz Utsonomiya (Virgin Records). Their foreign sales and acquisitions division, focusing on buying and selling projects at film markets, is also being shored up with that division's head, Brad Wyman, being joined by Bradley Fischer and David Glasser. And joining as general board members, not tied to specific divisions but having a say in all project development include former HBO head Michael J. Fuchs, notable film producers Denise Di Novi, Robert Simonds and the team of Mario Kassar and Andrew G. Vajna, former Brandywine Productions founders David Giler and Walter Hill, former Michael Bay apprentices Andrew Form and Brad Fuller, former Disney Channel programming head Rich Ross, and former Walt Disney Studios chairman Peter Schneider. Between all of them, Springbok has gained considerable muscle and clout that many insiders consider a definite win for them.  
  
Wagner, along with Cruise, formed Cruise/Wagner Productions in 1993, with the intent to give her client more creative control over his projects and retain more of the profits. The company, which Springbok bought as part of Wagner's pact, has earned almost $3 billion over its life, through such films as the _Mission: Impossible_ franchise, _Vanilla Sky_ , _The Last Samurai_ , _Minority Report_ , the 2005 _War of the Worlds_ , and _Lions for Lambs_. C/W also moved into more arty territory in films that Cruise wouldn't star in, such as _The Others_ (starring his ex-wife Nicole Kidman), _Narc_ , _Ask the Dust_ and _Shattered Glass_ , Billy Ray's 2003 film starring Hayden Christensen (at one point a serious contender to play Anakin Skywalker in George Lucas' Star Wars prequels) as disgraced _New Republic_ journalist Stephen Glass. Cruise and Wagner also attempted to stretch themselves by taking control of United Artists, buying a 30 percent stake in the venerable studio owned by MGM, and moving to restore its luster. However, their tenure was brief and bitterly disappointing. As part of her Springbok contract, Wagner and Cruise have sold their ownership stake of UA back to MGM. "Paula is not on board as an executive," a member of Springbok's legal team present at the talks states. "She is here in a creative capacity, and she knows her way around film production. She has invaluable insight, and will only be a plus. As to whether we can get Tom signed on to any projects, that's hard to tell, especially since, because of previous disputes they had with Paramount, we don't own any part of future _M:I_ installments. He's not the most highly paid star for nothing, and we'd really have to provide an extremely nice sweetheart deal to attract him here, but he'd certainly be worth every penny."  
  
Jacobson was part of the team at Walt Disney Studios, which overlooks the live action filmography, having sat through the tenures of Jeffrey Katzenberg, Joe Roth, Peter Schneider and the early days of Dick Cook and Meryl Poster. Her final days there were fraught with continuous headaches, where she oversaw the folding of Miramax Pictures into the Touchstone brand (and subsequent partial rebranding) after Harvey Weinstein's exposure, the shuttering of Caravan Pictures and Hollywood Pictures, which had ended up becoming Disney's toxic waste dump, the controversy regarding Mel Gibson's 2006 film _Apocalypto_ , and a breaking of ties with M. Night Shyamalan. The director, after having been credited as a wunderkind creative genius with films such as _The Sixth Sense_ , _Unbreakable_ and _Signs_ , began to lose his groove soon after. His 2004 film _The Village_ was found to be underwhelming, and Jacobson, among the rest of the division, refused to greenlight his followup film, _Lady in the Water_. As a result, Shyamalan broke the contract Disney had with his production company, Blinding Edge Pictures, and gave the film over to Warner Bros. The film exceeded even Disney's worst fears when they passed, and Shyamalan then went to 20th Century Fox for his latest film, _The Happening_ , which did even worse. Currently, the director, after having been denied a chance to direct a live action adaptation of Springbok's animated Nickelodeon series _Avatar: The Last Airbender_ , is said to be working on a project with Will Smith. As for Jacobson, apparently Springbok's offer for a chance to join was too good to pass up and she put off any plans of retirement.  
  
Lansing, during her tenure at Paramount Pictures, solidified herself in its history with an incredible success rate. Under her watch, 80 percent of Paramount's films turned a profit, an unheard of feat. She also negotiated the success and release of _Braveheart_ and _Titanic_ with surprising budget and profit sharing deals with 20th Century Fox. Fox put up two-thirds of the budget and handled the international sales, but Paramount ended up keeping most of the overall profit and ownership of those films' Oscar victories. "Sherry is an absolute delight, and a true master at her art. Springbok is all the more blessed to receive her." Silverman, Thomopolous and Braun all were network heads in their past, and contributed impressive victories. Silverman turned around ratings for NBC's news division and nighttime lineup, as well as achieving success with ABC's programming, Thomopolous helped further solidify ABC as a force to be reckoned with and justified Disney's purchase of them, and Braun helped conceive the massive juggernaut series _Lost._ Dungey was considered an impressive up and comer with the potential to be head of the network in the future, but chose to tie her fortunes to Springbok and its television slate. Ostin, Waronker and Badeaux are best known for their tenure at Warner Bros. Records in the '70s, '80s and '90s, during which they moved to make it artist-friendly and a notable player in the rock world, with signings like Neil Young, Eric Clapton, REM, Van Halen, Maria Muldaur, Black Sabbath, Curtis Mayfield and Prince. Utsonomiya is a veteran of Virgin Records, having served as A&R for the label during the '90s, after Richard Branson sold it to EMI. Among his notable moments were solidifying Virgin's record promoting the Sex Pistols especially in the middle of their 1996 Filthy Lucre reunion tour and John Lydon's post-Pistols solo career, releasing the debut solo album of INXS frontman Michael Hutchence through subsidiary label V2 Records in '98, and signing The White Stripes to V2 as well as allowing Jack White to create his Third Man Records label as a vanity label, which slowly gained independence and became more than the home of The White Stripes or White's various other musical activities.

Fuchs has been a former member of and executive producer for HBO, having been involved in sports TV production for the cable network, and becoming CEO of the company by 1984. He also helped produce numerous concert specials for the network, as well as being involved in the administration of C-SPAN and Comedy Central. Fuchs became Vice President of Time Warner in 1995, then chairman and CEO of Warner Music Group, before he was fired by Time Warner vice chairman Gerald Levin. Di Novi produced several notable films with Tim Burton, including _Edward Scissorhands, Batman Returns, The Nightmare Before_ Christmas and _Ed Wood_ ; then also parlayed that into producing films like _Almost Heroes, Little Women, What a Girl Wants, Original Sin, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, Nights in Rodanthe, A Walk to Remember_ and _Life as We Know It_. Simonds has been attached to several notable Adam Sandler comedies such as _Airheads,_ _Billy Madison, Happy Gilmore, The Waterboy, The Wedding Singer_ and _Little Nicky_ ; as well as films like _Joe Dirt, Cheaper By the Dozen, Problem Child_ , the 2006 _The Pink Panther_ and the 2006 _The Shaggy Dog_.

Giler and Hill created Brandywine Productions, which Springbok bought in 2004, and it is known as the production company behind the _Alien_ franchise, though Hill is also known as an idiosyncratic director of films like _The Warriors, Southern Comfort, 48 Hrs., Another 48 Hrs., Streets of Fire, Brewster's Millions, Extreme Prejudice_ and _Red Heat_. Kassar and Vajna founded Carolco Pictures, best known for the _Rambo_ franchise as well as films like _Angel Heart, Total Recall, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Air America, The Doors, L.A. Story, Basic Instinct, Chaplin, Showgirls_ and _Cutthroat Island_ ; Vajna also formed and ran Cinergi Pictures, an indie with a long distribution deal with Disney that was responsible for _Medicine Man, Super Mario Bros., Tombstone, Renaissance Man, Color of Night, Judge Dredd, The Scarlet Letter, Nixon_ and _Evita_. Form and Fuller founded the production company Platinum Dunes with Michael Bay, at the time considered one of Hollywood's biggest blockbuster directors with films like _Bad Boys, The Rock_ and _Armageddon_. The company was planned to break in music video directors to create "blockbuster but reasonable in budget" horror remakes, with budgets not exceeding $20 million. Their sole output was a 2003 remake of _The Texas Chainsaw Massacre_ , and Bay's financial problems and eventual retirement from directing did the company in. Ross helped lead and run programming at The Disney Channel, especially during its transition from premium cable access to basic access channel and helped establish its identity. Schneider helped run Walt Disney Animation Studios during its notable '90s resurgence with classics like _The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast_ and _Aladdin_ ; he became the chair of Walt Disney Studios in 1999, but left the post after a mere three years due to restlessness.

Springbok's foreign sales and acquisitions division, focusing on buying projects at film markets and festivals as well as selling distribution rights to individual distributors on a territory-by-territory basis has been headed by Brad Wyman, who first was involved as a producer on Springbok's 2003 film _Monster_ , starring co-founder Charlize Theron as convicted serial killer Aileen Wuornos, and chose to help keep the company running. He has personally selected his new deputies; Bradley Fischer and David Glasser, who've been involved in sales divisions of other companies as well as a myriad of other jobs in their lives.  
  
In addition to all this, Springbok decided to solidify a future with Johnny Depp, who starred in Springbok's adaptation of _Sweeney Todd_ and the recent Disney outing _Alice in Wonderland_ , both directed by his constant collaborator Tim Burton. They also helped finance his 2005 film _The Libertine_ and secured a distribution deal for the movie with Disney under its Touchstone Pictures banner and roped in Mel Gibson's Icon Productions to produce it. Depp, who is also the lead in Springbok's upcoming animated project _Rango_ (reuniting him with _Pirates of the Caribbean_ director Gore Verbinski), has officially signed up to do yet another project with them, a semisatirical biopic of Saddam Hussein, playing the lead. The film project came to life as they took an option on a hagiographic account of Hussein's life written by anti-imperialist gadfly Tariq Ali, which was brought to them by comic actor Sacha Baron Cohen, who hooked up the company for the mockumentary films _Borat_ and _Bruno_. Baron Cohen will also star in the film, projected to open in 2012, as Hussein's right hand man, and Larry Charles, who directed both earlier films, is back in the director's chair for this project as well.  
  
To further solidify their relationship, Springbok has also committed to providing a cash infusion for Depp's film production company, Infinitum Nihil, run since 2004 by his sister Christine Dembrowski, and his indie music label Unison Music. The latter was formed only recently by his good friend Bruce Witkin, a studio engineer and producer who was a childhood friend of Depp's and recorded his vocals for _Sweeney Todd_ , and Ryan Dorn, with an aim to produce and release albums by indie rock artists, with Depp an unofficial A&R man, and contributing guitar and vocals (as well as directing music videos) when he feels. Their first signing was the band Babybird, whose first album with Unison Music, _Ex-Maniac,_ was released in March, propelled by the lead single "Unloveable" ( _sic_ ), which Depp played guitar on and directed the video for. Springbok used its record industry contacts to solidify Unison Music a distribution deal with Atlantic Records, which will manufacture and distribute all Unison releases.  
  
Depp also recently proceeded with a rash of selling off of several of his dozens of properties around the world, and some of his more expensive belongings, to help fund both endeavors, as well as "reorient" himself. He and his romantic partner, Vanessa Paradis, have always been fairly private, especially regarding their two children, Lily-Rose and Jack. But lately, they have been more reclusive, and rumors suggested that Depp was considering packing it in.  
  
"None of that is remotely true," a Depp associate replies. "But Johnny is getting himself into a better place. After Lily-Rose got sick and recovered, he came to the realization that he needed to work on himself, for his family's sake. He's given up smoking, he has largely cut back from drinking, and he doesn't really party with any kind of substances anymore. He also has slowed down his spending habits and sold things off because his accountants pointed out that he was on the verge of getting himself into a hole he couldn't dig himself out of. He's learning to be prudent, especially because, as he says, 'I don't want to have to take a film role just because I need the money to provide for my family.' Johnny wants what's best for Vanessa and the children, and the people at Springbok indirectly brought him to this point. He is truly grateful that they came into his life."

* * *

"How Congress and Hollywood Expanded America's Public Domain" by Tim Dickinson, _Rolling Stone_ , August 25, 2010  
  
It may seem quaint, but there was a time not long before that the number of American works entering the public domain were practically nonexistent. Copyright terms were quite restrictive and lengthy, and many amazing works, both those regarded as classics, and those that had simply fallen by the wayside, essentially forgotten, were just locked away from the public to use as they see fit. And Hollywood was thus stuck in a very specific pattern of works based on specific properties, with the pattern of sequels, reboots, reimaiginings and retcons seemingly endless. Then, when _The Addams Family_ became a box office success, it set a trend for TV shows of decades past to be turned into big screen versions of differing quality. For every _Charlie's Angels_ , there was a _McHale's Navy_.  
  
While these patterns still continue, they aren't as dominant as they used to be, with an increasing number of Hollywood film and television adaptations of stories that have entered public domain becoming notable. But it easily could've been very different.  
  
Back in the late '90s, there were two different attempts for Hollywood, the music industry, and literary estates (such as those of Mark Twain and Edgar Rice Burroughs) to, in practice, keep their IPs under lock and key forever. The Copyright Term Extension Act, which was nicknamed by many as the "Mickey Mouse Act" because of constant public lobbying by Disney, was literally what the name suggested, a decision to increase the length of copyright terms by another 20 years, which would, for example, keep Mickey from entering public domain until 2023. The bill received considerable bipartisan support, and President Clinton seemed quite willing to sign it into law. However, no one predicted that massive grassroots organizations would flock on Capitol Hill and protest, especially attacking the centrist "Third Way" Democrats for supporting this measure. The organization Fairness and Accuracy In Research (FAIR) especially led the way, and kept on castigating Disney, especially with this bill coming so soon after its purchase of Capital Cities/ABC. As a result of the surprising public outrage and news exposure, the bill was tabled and sent to oblivion.  
  
But there was a backup plan. Enter the Digital Copyright Millennium Act, which moved to incorporate some of the CTEA's measures, strengthen others, and include some of its own, especially those regarding the Internet. But now, Democrats in both houses of Congress decided to fight and amend the proposal. California Senator Barbara Boxer, in particular, took on the fight. As a result, the DMCA passed in an amended form, with fairly liberalized copyright and "fair use" laws for the Internet, and keeping copyright terms at a "manageable" length. As a result, Mickey Mouse entered the public domain in 2003, though not without a desperate, embarrassing last-ditch effort by Disney CEO Michael Eisner that had considerable blowback and fizzled out quickly.  
  
That was not the end of the debate however, as after the Democrats asserted control of Congress after the 2002 midterms, while they moved to keep up as many initiatives of the Clinton administration and prospective Gore administration alive, such as ratifying the Kyoto Protocols and working on education reform, there was now a massive effort to expand the public domain and give masterpiece works, mainly literary, "back to the people." In short order, the Public Domain Expansion Act was brought up for debate, which effectively removed considerable power from book publishers, literary estates and the like. It was passed in 2005, but then vetoed by President George W. Bush. Congress promptly overrode the veto, and the bill took effect the following year.  
  
As a result, the door was now opened for works like _Tarzan_ , _John Carter of Mars_ , _Tom Sawyer_ , _Huckleberry Finn_ , and the original _Tom Swift_ to be freely adapted by as many groups, production companies, studios and the like with precious few strings attached. And with people free to pursue their creative vision for these projects however they saw fit, different aspects and nuances could be brought into focus like never before, and many times, the results were effective. And Hollywood gained a certain new respectability amidst intellectual circles. But how easily it could've been different.

* * *

"Legendary Pictures Chairman Engineers Takeover," by Ben Fritz, _Los Angeles Times_ , October 5, 2010 **  
  
**Thomas Tull is taking control of Legendary Pictures. The chairman of the film financing and production company has quietly led a buyout of its original investors in order to more directly steer an expansion into video games, digital media and other businesses. Under the deal that closed last week, Tull brought on two new investors to acquire nearly all the stake held by investors who backed the company’s founding in 2004, according to several people familiar with the situation. A representative for Legendary declined to comment.  
  
The transaction resulted in Tull becoming Legendary’s largest controlling shareholder, making it easier for him to push the company beyond its current business of co-financing films with Warner Bros. Tull hired former Electronic Arts executive Kathy Vrabeck last year to lead Legendary’s digital business, and he previously weighed buying video game developer Epic Games but has yet to make a major move in the area.  
  
Legendary’s new backers are Fidelity Investments and Fortress Investment Group, one person close to the deal said. Fortress was part of an unsuccessful bid this year with Ron Burkle to acquire the Miramax Films name from The Walt Disney Company.  
  
Fidelity and Fortress, along with Tull, acquired the stakes held by Abry Partners, AIG Direct Investments, Bank of America, Columbia Capital, Falcon Investment Advisors and M/C Venture Partners. Those original partners had invested about $400 million in Legendary at a time when it was focused solely on financing movies. They sold their stakes at a profit, people close to the situation said. In a document posted on its website, M/C Venture Partners reported “a very successful exit” from its association with Legendary.  
  
Unlike other private equity-backed film investment companies that have struggled, Legendary has been associated with several successful pictures, including _The Dark Knight_ , _The Hangover_ and _Inception_ , although it has had some flops, such as this summer’s _Jonah Hex_.  
  
At the time that the buyout closed last week, Legendary also formed a strategic partnership with Hong Kong movie company Orange Sky Golden Harvest Entertainment to explore business opportunities in China. Orange Sky also invested $25 million, which Legendary used for a small portion of the buyout.  
  
A company representative said Legendary declined to disclose the buyout of its original investors last week because it doesn’t discuss private financial matters. Specific financial details of the buyout were not available, but people familiar with the matter said Legendary is now valued at more than $1 billion.  
  
The company’s deal to co-finance movies with Warner Bros. expires in 2013.

* * *

"Blavatnik & Till's Icon to Co-Finance Movies with New Line Cinema," by Sharon Waxman, _The Wrap_ , October 11, 2010  
  
New Line Cinema has created a film production fund with Russian billionaire Len Blavatnik to make movies budgeted between $5 million and $20 million, TheWrap has learned.  
  
The new fund — created among Blavatnik’s Access Industries, his newly purchased Icon UK Group and New Line — will be a rolling credit facility that could support up to $100 million over the next two years.  
  
Blavatnik, a Moscow-born businessman who lives between the U.S. and London, is ranked by _Forbes_ among the world’s top 100 billionaires, with an estimated fortune of $7.5 billion.  
  
He had been circling many potential projects in the entertainment industry, including bidding on MGM and considering a purchase of the Miramax name from Disney. This will be his first major foray into filmmaking.  
  
New Line will handle U.S. distribution for the films and will split international distribution with Icon.  
  
TheWrap has learned multiple inside details of this new fund, the latest to aim at mid-budget productions that have been abandoned by the major studios and/or haven't been picked up as prestige vehicles by Springbok Productions, Disney's Touchstone Pictures or MGM, all of which moved to fill the void that Miramax left behind after it was shuttered following Harvey Weinstein's exposure.  
  
The fund will be controlled by Blavatnik’s companies, Access and Icon. Icon is run by Stewart Till, the former CEO of United International Pictures. The partners will each have a certain number of “put” options for favored projects over the course of the deal.  
  
New Line will distribute in the United States, Canada, Germany, France and Australia, putting up all of the funds for prints and advertising. Icon will distribute in the United Kingdom and other foreign territories. Blavatnik and New Line will share the profits 50-50, with all revenues going into a single pot. "This is a great deal," New Line founder and head Robert Shaye told the press. "We get to help Icon build itself into a real power in distribution, and we make impressive projects together. It's the best deal I've done: best for Icon, best for New Line, best for Time Warner, and best for the ticket-buying audiences."  
  
Icon UK CEO added: "This is a great deal on two counts. Firstly, it fits our more aggressive acquisitions and production strategy, and secondly, it's a fantastic opportunity to work with a newly rejuvenated New Line."  
  
Icon UK head Hugo Grumbar stated that the deal was brokered with the intention of getting better access to the domestic market via New Line in addition to accessing New Line's talent. "There's an enormous amount of talent out there and both of us want to get into producing smaller level films. This fund seemed like a natural progression for both of us. We both want to make movies that are going to sell internationally and domestically. There will be no loud voices on either side of the table and there's no point in sitting around as we've already seen so many things that fit the bill."  
  
Michael Lynne, co-CEO of New Line, added the following: "As we witness the shuttering of independent film divisions at the studios, we see this collaboration of like-minded companies as a tremendous opportunity to embrace the numerous opportunities out there."  
  
The companies have worked together before. New Line and Icon both have recently distributed such titles as _Nowhere Boy_ (2009), _The Box_ (2009), _A Single Man_ (2009) and _The Road_ (2009).  
  
In November 2009, Blavatnik’s U.S.-based Access Industries financed Till in buying Icon Film Distribution, the international sales and film distribution arm of Los Angeles-based Icon Group, formed by Mel Gibson and Bruce Davey, along with its Majestic film library.

* * *

"Disney, Paramount, Marvel Restructure Distribution Deal," BusinessWire, October 18, 2010  
  
BURBANK, CA. --The Walt Disney Studios, Paramount Pictures and Marvel Studios announced they have reached an agreement under which Paramount will transfer its worldwide marketing and distribution rights to Disney for Marvel Studios’ _The Avengers_ and _Iron Man 3_. Paramount will remain the worldwide distributor of the upcoming films, _Thor_ and _Captain America,_ as well as the previously released _Iron Man_ , _Iron Man 2_ and _Black Widow_.  
  
Under terms of the new deal, Disney will pay Paramount $115 million for the transfer of the distribution rights to _Iron Man 3_ and _The Avengers_ to be paid on the theatrical release dates. These monies will serve as a minimum guarantee against the distribution fees.  
  
Furthermore, the deal further reaffirms Disney’s plans regarding Marvel. Marvel Entertainment has been officially broken into three sections, with Marvel Entertainment (which oversees Marvel Comics, Marvel Animation, and the _X-Men_ films made with preexisting licensing rights deals with 20th Century Fox) under the control of CEO Isaac Perlmutter. Marvel Studios, the film group officially attached to Disney as the production company for the so-called Marvel Cinematic Universe, is a separate organization, headed by Kevin Feige, and reporting to Walt Disney Studios chair Meryl Poster as his direct superior. And Marvel Television, under the leadership of Jeph Loeb, is a forthcoming division that will be incorporated in 2012 and make television spinoffs related to the MCU, and is officially part of the Disney-ABC Television Group.  
  
“In completing this agreement, Disney will now assume worldwide marketing and distribution of _The Avengers_ and _Iron Man 3_ and leverage these two highly-anticipated films across the multiple global platforms of The Walt Disney Company,” said Poster. “We appreciate the tremendous momentum that Paramount established with these iconic Marvel characters and look forward to propelling the brand even further in the coming years.”  
  
“Five years ago, when Paramount and Marvel made our initial deal, both our businesses were in very different places,” said Brad Grey, Chairman & CEO of Paramount Pictures. “We are grateful for the partnership we have had with the terrific Marvel team over these years and proud of the work we have done together. Today, this new agreement is the right deal for Paramount, for Marvel and for Disney. We look forward to working together on _Thor_ and _Captain America_ , and we wish Disney and Marvel the utmost success, in what we know will be a very productive and wide-ranging partnership.”  
  
"Paramount has been a wonderful partner in helping Marvel Studios bring our characters to the big screen," said Alan Fine, Office of the President, Marvel Worldwide, Inc. "This agreement makes sense now that Marvel is part of The Walt Disney Company."  
  
Paramount will release Marvel Entertainment’s _Thor_ and _Captain America_ worldwide beginning on May 6 and July 22 of 2011, respectively. _The Avengers_ will be licensed to Epix under Paramount’s existing pay television arrangement.  
  
ABOUT THE WALT DISNEY STUDIOS  
  
For more than 85 years, The Walt Disney Studios has been the foundation on which The Walt Disney Company (NYSE: DIS) was built. Today, the Studio brings quality movies, music and stage plays to consumers throughout the world. Feature films are released under five banners: Walt Disney Pictures, which includes Walt Disney Animation Studios and Pixar Animation Studios, Disneynature, Lucasfilm Ltd., Marvel Studios, and Touchstone Pictures, which includes the distribution of live action films from DreamWorks Studios; the Studio also released films through the former banners Hollywood Pictures, Caravan Pictures and Miramax Films, a library it still owns and redistributes to this day. Through the Buena Vista Home Entertainment and Disney-ABC Television Group divisions (the latter of which includes ABC, ABC Classic, ABC Family, ESPN, The Disney Channel, Disney Channel Classic and SOAPNet, as well as a 50 percent ownership share of A&E Networks (includes A&E, The History Channel, The Biography Channel and Lifetime Entertainment Services)), innovative distribution methods provide access to creative content across multiple platforms. Original music and motion picture soundtracks are produced under Walt Disney Records and Hollywood Records, and books by Hyperion Books, while Disney Theatrical Group produces and licenses live events, including Broadway theatrical productions, Disney on Ice and Disney LIVE!.  
  
ABOUT MARVEL  
  
Marvel Entertainment, LLC, a wholly-owned subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company, is one of the world's most prominent character-based entertainment companies, built on a proven library of over 8000 characters featured in a variety of media over seventy years. Marvel utilizes its character franchises in licensing, entertainment (via Marvel Studios, the forthcoming Marvel Television, and Marvel Animation) and publishing (via Marvel Comics). Marvel's strategy is to leverage its franchises in a growing array of opportunities around the world, including feature films, consumer products, toys, video games, animated television, direct-to-DVD and online.  
  
ABOUT PARAMOUNT PICTURES CORPORATION  
  
Paramount Pictures Corporation (PPC), a global producer and distributor of filmed entertainment, is a unit of Viacom (NYSE: VIA) (NYSE:VIA.B), a leading content company with prominent and respected film, television and digital entertainment brands. The company's labels include Paramount Pictures, Paramount Vantage, Paramount Classics, Insurge Pictures, MTV Films, and Nickelodeon Movies. PPC operations also include Paramount Digital Entertainment, Paramount Famous Productions, Paramount Home Entertainment, Paramount Pictures International, Paramount Licensing Inc., Paramount Studio Group, and Worldwide Television Distribution.

* * *

"Leonard Soloway Interview," Broadway.com, October 23, 2010

In an editing room at Skywalker Ranch, the movie ranch compound owned by George Lucas, Springbok Productions' stage theatricals head, Leonard Soloway, is among the group glued to the screens. He, Amblin Entertainment co-founder Kathleen Kennedy, composing legends Andrew Lloyd Webber and Jim Steinman, and director Garry Marshall have joined editor Michael Kahn in watching over the latest rough cut of the film _Whistle Down the Wind_ , a screen adaptation of a popular West End musical by Lloyd Webber and Steinman, the latter of whom is still dressed head to toe in black leather and dark shades offset by his silvery mane, but whose body has blown out and shows the scars of cardiac health problems of years past (reportedly due to a continuous length of hard living and excess). "I think we can trim off twenty seconds in that scene," Marshall, the ebullient director of films like _Beaches_ and _Pretty Woman_ , says in his inimitable, Yiddish-flavored voice. "But I really like the bridge," Steinman rebuts in a whiny, Staten Island-inflected tone. "The guitar break is really killer." Soloway just looks straight ahead at the screen. "Jim, what have I told you about killing the darlings? Besides, the pacing of film is different than on the stage."  
  
Scenes like this are fairly common during the production and post production process of _Whistle_ , a parable about a group of young children in 1959 Louisiana who discover a convict hiding in a barn and mistake him for Jesus. The show was a massive hit during its two-and-a-half-year London run, but a North American jaunt by Springbok less than a decade later did not fare so well, as it was eviscerated by the critics, calling it "insipid", "juvenile fantasy", and "overwrought melodrama to the point bordering on Lifetime movie," leading to it becoming Springbok's first ever flop in musical theater. "American critics were never going to get it, especially not the New York ones," Soloway reflects. "It's very much an aberration to their senses, especially with how earnest and sincere it is, surprisingly so from Jim's lyrics. They can't buy that a teenage girl, who falls in love with the convict, would easily follow the other children in mistaking him for Jesus. But it was in the original novel that Andrew adapted, so you can't write it without having that scene. It's just baked in."  
  
The lavish film production, filmed entirely on location in the Acadiana region of Louisiana, and boasting a cast including Garrett Hedlund, Elle Fanning, Paul Dano, Michael K. Williams, Idris Elba and Adrienne Warren, and produced in conjunction with Steven Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment for a May 20 release, certainly goes all out to deliver something that's both a document of the show, and a deeper, richer experience. "Andrew, Jim, Nigel (longtime Lloyd Webber right hand man Nigel Wright), Rink (longtime Steinman assistant/engineer/mixer Steven Rinkoff) and I definitely talked a lot in handling the orchestrations for the movie. We decided to really enrich them with more of a regional flavor. In the stage show, the songs are very straightforward orchestral and/or rock numbers, big emphasis on pounding drums, rollicking piano, screaming guitars and swooping strings. We definitely still have all that, but we wanted to really deepen the sound, and capture the location. We're in Cajun country, in the late '50s, during the birth of rock and roll, which got a lot of its influence from gospel, country and the blues. So now certain songs have more of that authentic flavor. We also mixed in zydeco arrangements, to definitely fit location better."  
  
Given how much the original stage production was rejected, how could it possibly fare better on the silver screen? "There's a very good chance it won't," Soloway admits. "This is very much a love it or hate it work, like _Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas_. But, given the strong Christian-based message of redemption, it could certainly play well with the Bible Belt, especially if there are entirely faith-based screenings like _The Passion of the Christ_ had. Not to mention, quite a few musical productions were reviled at first, but the public's love made them turn around. _Les Miserables_ was absolutely loathed when it opened, but they turned around in less than a year."  
  
Speaking of, the news that Springbok will be tackling a film adaptation of the world's longest-running musical, to be released in 2012, came as little surprise, especially with their past successes in filmed adaptations of musicals, most notably _The Phantom of the Opera_. When pressed about the project, Soloway plays coy. "I'm not really at liberty to say anything about how that will turn out. Just that we were in talks with Cameron Mackintosh (producer of the stage version and of lavish anniversary concert specials) and he basically approached us first. He said, 'you know what a film of the show needs, what makes it work, how to bring the plot and the themes to life and resonating so powerfully.'"  
  
Springbok's continued work in musical theater is also sure to keep Soloway busy. Especially working with Disney on the new stage transfer of Tim Burton's _The Nightmare Before Christmas_ , though it was expressly planned to not be a Broadway-bound show, but play seasonally every October through New Year's. "If you're doing something like _Nightmare_ , it only works if you do it from Halloween through New Year's, and unless you're a revival of a big show that previously played the Great White Way like _Fiddler on the Roof_ , you're not allowed to do seasonal runs. But going off-Broadway, and to regional productions, that's how you can make an impact. It will run for the last three months of the year, every year until the end of time!"  
  
One of Springbok's most surprising stage projects, _The Book of Mormon_ , by _South Park_ creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker along with Robert Lopez, after countless workshops, will finally open on Broadway at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre on March 24, 2011, after one month of previews. "It took time, but we finally got it together. Our young leads, Josh Gad and Andrew Rannells, are perfect embodiments of the protagonists, and we found the perfect director in Casey Nicholaw to bring the vision to life." When queried as to why Springbok hooked up with Stone and Parker, after a notable and heated falling out because of an episode in which they skewered the company and Nirvana, Soloway remains chipper. "Just because you have personal differences...and still do, shouldn't prevent you from working together if you believe in a common creative vision. The book for the musical was absolutely amazing, and the comedy is just incredibly incisive, cutting and on point. It would be an aesthetic crime not to be involved."  
  
Springbok also helped produce Lloyd Webber's latest stage production, _Love Never Dies_ , a sequel to _Phantom_ , has done reasonably well, even if it is agreed that the show is nowhere near equaling the original. "To be honest, Anita (Waxman), Elizabeth (Williams) and I fought a lot with Andrew over his vision of the show. In fact, we told him that there simply wasn't enough material to justify a sequel. But he wouldn't let go of the idea, so we did a lot of brush-up work and directly told him that his original idea was nowhere near up to scratch, and devaluing _Phantom_ to boot. I mean, basically it was pandering the fangirls that want Christine to end up with the Phantom, even though there is no realistic way for that to work. We were definitely hoping that we could at least produce a decent enough coda, but no more, and I feel that's what we did."  
  
Despite feeling that there is no real sequel to the story of _Phantom_ , Soloway asserts that there actually is more to the story to make another production. "There's a lot of material in Gaston Leroux's original novel that Andrew excised when he did _Phantom_ , especially the last third of the story, the parts involving the Persian. You could easily use that as the bones to make a prequel. In fact, it could easily be powerful enough to match the original production and really flesh out the Phantom. In fact, I've told Andrew that he should really get on that at once. I can totally imagine the story of _Phantom_ playing out like _The Godfather_ ; two parts and a coda."  
  
In addition, Soloway states that a stage transfer of Disney's _Aladdin_ will soon have a tryout in Seattle (with all the original songs from the film by Alan Menken with Howard Ashman and Tim Rice, discarded songs Ashman and Menken wrote that didn't get used in the film, and new songs by Menken and librettist Chad Beguelin), as well as a transfer of the 1992 film _Newsies,_ containing a rejiggered score by Alan Menken and Jack Feldman and a book by Harvey Fierstein, which will have a tryout at the Paper Mill Playhouse in New Jersey starting on September 25. Work on an English version of _The Hunchback of Notre Dame_ will finally soon be underway. "We've resolved all our differences with Dennis (DeYoung, frontman of Styx), and we're now deep in the creative process of working out an adaptation, what to keep from the Berlin version, what to cut, what to add, and how to bring this story to life. We certainly want to make it fit more in line with Victor Hugo's original text, and make it a darker story. "The ending of the novel is extremely powerful, with Quasimodo throwing Frollo off the belltower, Esmeralda dying in his arms, and staying by her side until he dies from starvation. It really is needed for the stage version, and will definitely make audiences appreciate it more."  
  
And notably, Soloway states that they are reteaming with Mel Brooks to work on a stage transfer of _Blazing Saddles_ to premiere sometime in 2012. "That movie is Mel's magnum opus, the masterpiece by which everything else is judged, and we know it can work quite well on stage. Now, Mel likes to say that the original movie couldn't be made today, simply because of the advent of political correctness, but I don't think that's true. Mel didn't throw around the racial slurs and stereotypes just for shock value, he did them to make a point to show the absurdity of prejudice. That has always been what he's done. In _The Producers_ , for example, it's easy to conclude that Carmen Ghia and Roger DeBris exist solely as mincing, preening gay stereotypes and nothing more, but there is a reason. During that scene, especially the musical version with 'Keep it Gay', Max Bialystock moves to reassure Leo Bloom that Roger's group is nothing to fear or be uncomfortable from. He even tells him, 'this is showbiz', showing that he doesn't actually think anything about their sexual orientation. They're just people, and they're so common, especially on Broadway, that their lifestyle soon doesn't factor at all. Mel has always been good at doing this, even though he's not fully aware of the fact he's imparting messages in works that are just meant to be absurdist, meta comedy. That's why we're tackling _Saddles_ and bringing it to life."

* * *

"Hollywood's Gifts to New Orleans," by Fred Bernstein, _The New York Times_ , November 25, 2010 **  
  
**In what might be considered a stunning transformation, in five short years, New Orleans has gone from a gutted, flooded city, decimated by Hurricane Katrina and massive failures of design and government policy, to a reborn metropolis, once again proudly strutting its very unique culture and bringing in massive waves of tourists once more. The metamorphosis is nothing short of astonishing, and even many longtime residents are floored. "It's like waking from a nightmare, and suddenly you look around and see that everything is fine, that all the tension and worry in your dreaming state were just a dream and nothing more," says one resident. "One could look around and see absolutely no evidence of what happened, not even in the places that were hit the most, like the Lower Ninth Ward. Not just that, but a lot of the social problems that existed in the city prior to the storm have been tackled head on for once."  
  
How is all this possible? What made the Crescent City shine again by the decade's end? To some extent, it has to do with cleaning house, as deeply divisive and unpopular mayor C. Ray Nagin, who botched preparations for Katrina and the aftermath, and also engaged in shameless race baiting in an attempt to save himself, was unseated from office during the 2006 mayoral election by liberal Democrat Mitch Landrieu, who immediately went to sweep away the rot and corruption that had plagued the city for decades, and that Mr. Nagin had particularly made worse. He also worked to restore faith in the city's various services, particularly the New Orleans Police Department, and launched popular civil rights and economic reforms. But most of all, he laid out a massive, sweeping rebuilding plan, with particular emphasis on shoring up the levees that failed, to be capable of handling a 1000-year storm, overhauling the city's pump system, and even work on traffic on the Mississippi River and Lake Pontchartrain. Simply put, Mr. Landrieu stepped up to the plate to put the city back on its feet.  
  
However, Mr. Landrieu alone wasn't responsible for the massive renaissance. In what many people refer to as the most sweeping act of chivalry ever undertaken by the entertainment industry, much of Hollywood officially chose to get in the trenches and become personally involved in the rebuilding efforts. Among those who most particularly got involved were Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain and his wife, actress Charlize Theron, who of course also co-founded the rising powerhouse company Springbok Productions, and actor Brad Pitt. Mr. Pitt particularly took great interest in helping the city recover while he was in New Orleans during filming of the David Fincher film _The Curious Case of Benjamin Button_ , which was also produced by Springbok, and he dreamed up what he referred to as the Make It Right Foundation, a nonprofit what aid in the rebuilding of the Lower Ninth Ward in an environmentally friendly manner. He hoped to build an organization that would basically make every part of the homebuilding process eco-friendly and also lower energy costs, making the homes more affordable than ever.  
  
However, Mr. Cobain and Ms. Theron interjected and said that Mr. Pitt's plans, while obviously noble, were not realistic for the environment. "Kurt and Charlize really criticized what Brad originally planned," a Make It Right employee says. "They told him that to build homes using wood that was not treated would very quickly rot in the New Orleans climate, and they also took umbrage at the plans the architects were coming up. Charlize particularly said that she'd talked to quite a few architects and they'd told her that these guys' plans for flat roofs were a disaster waiting to happen, because it rains a lot of New Orleans, and it would pool and collect, wearing away at the roof and ensuring leaks would ensue. Brad initially didn't want to hear that, saying that, 'we can still make it work somehow,' but they just wouldn't leave it at that, saying basically, 'take one for the team here. These people need homes that are sturdy and reliable, don't try to reinvent the wheel when you don't know the city that well.'"  
  
The chewing out seemed to have worked, as Mr. Pitt relented. He also came to agree that Make It Right should not have to shoulder the rebuilding work alone, and that more established organizations such as Habitat for Humanity should take charge in the rebuilding effort, with Make It Right as an adjunct, and that whatever environmental improvements could be made that wouldn't weaken the houses, would still be implemented. A frenzy of work on houses followed, with many famous faces being spotted being involved in both organizations, not just as raising funds to help the mission, but even taking part in the actual building. Besides Mr. Pitt, Mr. Cobain and Ms. Theron, those who've stepped up to the plate include Mr. Pitt's romantic partner, actress Angelina Jolie; comedian and talk show host Ellen DeGeneres and her wife, Portia DeRossi; pop-soul singer Seal; New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees; comedian Aziz Ansari; pop star Rihanna; legendary New Orleans performers Fats Domino and Dr. John; builder/contracter/businessman Mike Holmes; former Presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton and their respective families; actors Terry Crews, Jason Lee, Steve Carell, Rainn Wilson, Will Ferrell and Chris Farley; actress Reese Witherspoon; and U2 frontman Bono. Many of these people also launched massive awareness campaign ads to further help the cause. Mr. Crews did a commercial reprising his character of President Camacho from the Mike Judge film _Idiocracy_ , Mr. Lee as the titular character from the NBC sitcom _My Name Is Earl_ , Mr. Carell and Mr. Wilson reprising the roles of Michael Scott and Dwight Schrute from _The Office_ ; Mr. Ferrell reprising his role as news anchor Ron Burgundy from _Anchorman_ ; and Mr. Farley reprising his _Saturday Night Live_ character Matt Foley, in which he makes an impassioned plea to keep the residents of New Orleans from "living in a van down by the river." Mr. Cobain and Ms. Theron, through Springbok, also helped oversee repair work to Six Flags New Orleans to get it reopened in time for the 2007 season, partially because Springbok owns an equity stake in the park.  
  
Of course, not everything occurred smoothly. A lack of financial transparency on the part of Make It Right, by failing to file tax forms in a timely manner, led to a very strict investigation by the city board. Mr. Pitt chose to get ahead of the bad press and took responsibility for failing to oversee the organization properly, and saying, "I said I would work to make it right, and I will. I intend to keep that promise." A cleaning of house and righting the ship occurred, and despite a brief blip of disappointment and outrage, Mr. Pitt weathered the storm, and his career continues unabated, which involves not only acting but producing work with his production company, Plan B Entertainment.  
  
The end result is a rejuvenated New Orleans, arguably stronger than what stood before. In many ways, it appears to be a triumph of the human spirit and of ingenuity. "New Orleans shall endure, and we'll always be here, to be productive, to welcome people, and to celebrate life to its fullest."

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"Disney Spins Off Miramax Brand," by Alex Ben Block, _The Hollywood Reporter_ , December 3, 2010  
  
A $357 million sale of the Miramax Films name by Disney to Filmyard Holdings, the group led by construction exec Ron Tutor and investor Tom Barrack, was completed Friday, Disney confirmed. Qatar Holdings, which invests for the Middle Eastern country's royal family, also is a major investor in the deal. Among the minority investors is actor Rob Lowe through a fund he created with Barrack's Colony Capital, as well as Springbok Productions.  
  
The investors put up about $200 million, while a group of banks led by Barclays raised debt of about $150 million. (Qatar Holdings holds a minority stake in Barclays). New York investment bank Jefferies & Co. helped raise the debt, while Mesa Global, an investment bank that includes Mark Patricof, formerly at CAA, was involved in valuating the assets. Mesa also has been a part of such deals as the sale of ContentNext and paidContent.org to _The Guardian_ and recent funding for the theatrical troupe the Blue Man Group.  
  
The buyers got about $15 million in cash that came with Miramax and another $10 million in adjusted fee. The deal only includes the Miramax name and some 300 development projects previously being considered for Disney’s Touchstone Pictures banner. The library rights of the old Miramax (which include films such as _Cinema Paradiso_ , _The Thin Blue Line,_ _My Left Foot_ , _Sex, Lies and Videotape_ , _Ambition, The Crying Game,_ _Clerks_ , _Mallrats_ , _Chasing Amy_ , _Dogma_ , _Reservoir Dogs_ , _Pulp Fiction_ , _Jackie Brown_ , _The Piano_ , _Farwell My Concubine,_ _The Crow_ , _Georgia,_ _Good Will Hunting_ , _Shakespeare in Love_ , _Rounders, Copland, Shall We Dance, Bridget Jones' Diary, Swingers,_ _The English Patient_ , _Heavenly Creatures_ , _Marvin’s Room_ , _Sling Blade_ , _Trainspotting, Velvet Goldmine, Life Is Beautiful, The Cider House Rules_ and _The Talented Mr. Ripley;_ as well as films under the Dimension Films sub-brand like the _Scream_ franchise, Robert Rodriguez’ _El Mariachi_ trilogy, the _Spy Kids_ films and _From Dusk to Dawn_ ) will remain under Disney’s ownership, as well as dozens of book titles (since retitled to its Hyperion Books brand). However, Disney has given up rights to sequels and TV shows, allowing the new Miramax to make sequels and TV projects of library titles.  
  
Mike Lang, a former News Corporation executive who has been a consultant on the deal, is CEO of the new venture. At News Corp., Lang played a role in the acquisition of MySpace.  
  
Filmyard doesn’t intend to produce any new movies. At least for the next year or two, the new Miramax is simply a holding company for the name, to be looked after until a new buyer comes around to actually do something with the name and make it an active brand again, including possibly using the 300 development projects Disney parted with and the proposed sequel/TV spinoff ideas.  
  
In the ‘80s and ‘90s, Miramax, formed by brothers Bob and Harvey Weinstein, was the premiere powerhouse of Hollywood, releasing indie and specialty films across a variety of genres and launching the careers of promising young actors, writers and directors such as Quentin Tarantino, Kevin Smith, Jason Mewes, Minnie Driver, Kate Winslet, Jason Lee, Billy Crudup, Billy Bob Thornton, Antonio Banderas, Kevin Williamson, Salma Hayek, Gwyneth Paltrow, Ben Affleck and Matt Damon. When then-Disney CEO Michael Eisner bought the company in 1993 for $60 million, it officially allowed Disney to enter the indie and “Oscar-bait” films department, allowing them to further diversify their output. Though Disney had the final say on which films would be released, and their Buena Vista Home Entertainment released the home video versions, the Weinsteins had significant autonomy, far more than any other division head. After Disney bought Lucasfilm, Ltd., Pixar and ABC in 1996, Eisner and then Walt Disney Studios chairman Joe Roth spun off most of Miramax the following year to avoid the appearance of being monopolistic.  
  
However, as Miramax prepped the release and Oscar campaign for _Shakespeare in Love_ , it was rocked by the scandal that officially rippled through Hollywood and the entertainment industry as a whole: dozens of women accused Harvey Weinstein of sexual assault, and he and his brother were soon ousted from the company; _Shakespeare in Love_ ended up losing the Oscars race to _Saving Private Ryan_. Miramax limped along without its founders until it closed its doors in 2001, at which time Disney repurchased it and decided to fold it into Touchstone Pictures. While the Miramax logo and name would still appear in the opening credits, the Touchstone name and logo was added as well in all post-2001 home video releases of the library, and it would be Touchstone, not Miramax, in the “Home Video/Home Entertainment” intro logo and on the back artwork of the VHS, DVD and Blu-ray cases. Touchstone then also was used as the focus for projects that would’ve formerly been for Miramax, including continuing relationships with Tarantino and Smith, Martin Scorsese's _Gangs of New York_ , Anthony Minghella's _Cold Mountain_ , Ben Affleck's 2007 directorial debut _Gone Baby Gone_ , and Rob Marshall's 2002 adaptation of the musical _Chicago_.  
  
“Disney, especially Bob Iger and Meryl Poster (formerly the chairman of Miramax who did the actual administrative duties), decided to spin off the name because they feel it deserves another chance,” Sean Bailey, president of production at Walt Disney Studios, tells us. “It’s been a decade since it was used, and by this point, the public has forgotten about the name and the amazing films it released. By this point, a revival and new leadership could bring back some prestige to the industry, especially if people are afraid Springbok’s going to swallow it whole.” When asked why Filmyard isn’t doing anything with the name before another buyer comes along, Bailey is sanguine. “A holding company has no power in film production, and we knew going in that it would be years before a buyer with that clout will come along.”

"Although we remain proud of Miramax's many accomplishments, as well as those of Hollywood Pictures (which Disney shuttered in 2007), our current strategy for The Walt Disney Studios is to focus on the development of great motion pictures under the Disney, Touchstone, Pixar, Lucasfilm and Marvel brands," says Iger. "We are delighted that we have found a home for the Miramax brand and to allow them a future for works based on Miramax's highly regarded motion picture library, even as we continue to hold onto it under the Touchstone name."  
  
Despite being a holding company, Filmyard plans to staff the new Miramax as if it is an active venture. The _L.A. Times_ reported that Filmyard plans to hire 60-80 people in the next year or so as the company staffs up. It also plans to make entreaties for prospective buyers of Miramax.  
  
David Bergstein, who brought the deal to Tutor and who has been his business partner in the movie business, is not expected to have an operational role in the company, at least initially. However, he is in line to be paid a substantial broker's fee, which sources placed at about $3 million.  
  
The closing of the deal has been subject to much speculation, as many consider the price being paid very high for a tarnished, mothballed brand. Ironically, it was Springbok, the company that filled the void left behind by Miramax, that took the lead in providing the initial monies to put a deal together. (Springbok also decided to give generous financial assistance to the children of Oracle founder Larry Ellison via startup funds to create their own separate film companies: son David created Skydance Media earlier this year, which is also a co-producer of the Coen brothers’ remake of _True Grit_ ; while daughter Megan is launching her own group, Annapurna Pictures, with a special focus on financing, production and distribution of films somewhere between “arthouse” and “commercial” on the scale of Hollywood standards. Years ago, Springbok also gave a cash infusion to Trigger Street Productions, the company formed in the ‘90s by Kevin Spacey, to keep it afloat after his exposure, which enabled it to survive and produce David Fincher’s new film _The Social Network_ , about the creation of Facebook.) After Comerica Bank, Bank of America and Union Bank, which had initially been expected to handle the transaction, fell out, they were replaced by Barclays and Jefferies.  
  
Attorney Josh Grode of the law firm Liner Grode was among those who represented Tutor and Colony in the transaction. Grode was assisted by Liner Grode partner Paul Swanson and firm associates Sam Kozhaya, Zach Smith, Chet Devaskar and Gerry Janoff.

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"Springbok Goes Big for Trio of TV Movies," by Scott Collins, _The Los Angeles Times_ , January 2, 2011  
  
This year is shaping up to be a big one for Springbok Productions, with the release of nine movies, at least two big video games (a new _Call of Duty_ installment and the first game in the _Deus Ex_ series in eight years), a new Broadway musical by the creators of _South Park_ , a new anthology series by Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk this October for FX, _American Horror Story_ , and a new animated series for first-run syndication.  
  
But apparently this is not enough for them. Springbok's television division has apparently inked a massive deal with NBC to produce three made-for-TV movies for them. And they have decided to tackle a very ambitious project for such a deal. Springbok took an option to acquire the rights to a trio of bestselling true crime novels by author Joe McGinnis; _Fatal Vision_ , about the conviction of Green Beret Jeffrey R. MacDonald for the 1970 killing of his wife and daughters, _Blind Faith_ , about the conviction of Robert O. Marshall for the 1984 murder of his wife to cover massive debts and a torrid affair he was having, and _Cruel Doubt,_ about the 1988 murder of Lieth Von Stein, for which his stepson Chris Pritchard and two friends were convicted of. All three books were made into massive event miniseries by NBC in 1984, 1990, and 1992, respectively. Finance and production company East of Doheny, involved in film, television and theatricals, will co-produce the films as well, alongside Levinson/Fontana Productions, the TV project company founded by director Barry Levinson and partner Tom Fontana. Levinson is set to direct one of the films as well.  
  
However, unlike the earlier versions, Springbok is not settling for a straight dramatization of the crimes and the lives of the men who were imprisoned for them. "We don't simply want to retread old ground and settle for lurid, voyeuristic glee and shock value, like the books and the earlier miniseries did," Channing Dungey, one of the executives of Springbok's TV division replies. "While the crimes and the lives of Jeffrey MacDonald, Robert Marshall and Chris Pritchard will still be shown, we're also going to shine a spotlight on the media, especially the role McGinnis and his books had, and examine whether the well was poisoned against them."  
  
McGinnis has come under controversy from the accused, and from other journalists, as taking advantage of them and getting releases to write freely under false pretenses. MacDonald in particular alleges that McGinnis came offering his services, stating he was interested in writing a book that would prove his innocence, and signed a release form, only to be betrayed. He and other writers who have written books afterwards have stated that McGinnis withheld potentially exculpatory evidence from the manuscript, and had incredibly slanted beliefs about the prosecution. Pritchard and his family also attacked McGinnis for blaming their hobby of playing _Dungeons & Dragons_ as having an influence in the alleged murder.  
  
Thus, Springbok's trio of films will also explore McGinnis' role in the cases, his research methods, and show contradictory evidence that may or may not exonerate the convicted, at least in the court of public opinion. "We're not going to make a definitive statement that 'yes, they're guilty' or 'yes, they're innocent,'" Dungey says. "Unlike other cases like, say, the West Memphis Three and the _Paradise Lost_ films, there isn't enough evidence to really clinch it either way, and admittedly, the stronger evidence probably is that in favor of their guilt. But no one has really asked the questions before until now, and the questions have to be asked. Because just simply taking the verdicts, the books and the earlier films as gospel simply does a disservice to everyone."  
  
The films will come out one a year, starting next year, up through 2014. While _Fatal Vision_ was the first book and miniseries released in the past, it will now be the second of Springbok's versions, because they have also taken an option on a forthcoming book about the MacDonald case by acclaimed documentary filmmaker Errol Morris, who definitely is well versed in the area of exoneration. His 1988 documentary, _The Thin Blue Line_ , helped bring about the exoneration and release of Randall Dale Adams for a crime he did not commit, and 15 years later, his film _The Fog of War_ , an interview/interrogation of former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, resulted in the subject admitting wrongdoing and culpability regarding the leading of America to war in Vietnam.

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"Springbok Provides First Look at _Sailor Moon_ and  _ Inuyasha_," Anime News Network, January 15, 2011  
  
Springbok's Enima Studios division has officially provided the first look at their forthcoming live action adaptations of _Sailor Moon_ and _Inuyasha_ , complete with full information about the cast and crew for both endeavors.  
  
We were placed in conversation with Paula Wagner, recently added as helping film development at Springbok and known as Tom Cruise's longtime agent, about the productions. "First off," she states, "both of them are going to be two films each, a story that is neatly divided into two parts and filmed simultaneously. Both parts of _Sailor Moon_ and _Inuyasha_ are three hours each. This is because Springbok's version of _Death Note_ was three hours long, and also a way to really condense the full story, but also ensure that it is fully fleshed out. This way you can cut a lot of tedious filler, and keep the driving focus on the main plotline. After all, both series have a lot of arcs and character development that occurs over the period of their journeys, and to not show that to the best of our ability would do a great disservice to the story, and the fans."  
  
 _Sailor Moon_ , to be released next year by DreamWorks Pictures via Disney's Touchstone Pictures banner, in co-production with Steven Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment and Ron Howard's Imagine Entertainment (the latter of which is a co-producer on Springbok's adaptations of Lois Lowry's loose trilogy of _The Giver_ , _Gathering Blue_ and _Messenger_ ) boasts a lengthy script by Diablo Cody (best known for _Juno_ and also the writer of another Springbok vehicle due at the end of this year, _Young Adult)_ and series creator Naoko Takeuchi, which predominantly focuses on the first and second seasons/arcs of the anime, and is directed by Patty Jenkins, who directed the mesmerizing 2003 film _Monster_ , in which Springbok co-founder Charlize Theron gave an incredibly transformative, Oscar-winning performance as convicted serial killer Aileen Wuornos. In addition, the movie boasts a mixture of impressive newcomers and familiar faces: Kiralee Hayashi as Usagi Tsukino, the clumsy schoolgirl who transforms into the titular hero; Doona Bae (also in the Springbok-produced adaptation of _Cloud Atlas_ by the Wachowskis), Zoe Weizenbaum (from Springbok's adaptation of _Memoirs of a Geisha_ ), Catalina Yue and a score of unknown, previously undiscovered actresses as the remaining members of the Sailor Scouts; Karl Yune (another _Geisha_ alum) as Mamoru Chiba, Usagi's love interest who transforms into the hero Tuxedo Mask; Ken Watanabe (from _Geisha_ and _Batman Begins_ ) as Usagi's father Kenji; Drew Barrymore and Adrien Brody as the voices of Luna and Artemis, the Sailor Scouts' mentors/guardians trapped in the bodies of cats; Sean Young (Rachael from _Blade Runner_ ) as Queen Serenity; Kim Basinger as the season one/part one villain Queen Beryl; and Kurt Russell as season two/part two villain Rubeus. The film also includes a character created for the film versions, an American exchange student named Andy Rodgers, played by Ezra Miller, who knows the Sailor Scouts' identities from instantly recognizing their faces and becomes involved in their circle. Alan Silvestri will score the films.  
  
"We've been looking a lot at the rushes that have been coming out of Tokyo," Wagner states. "It's definitely shaping up to be an impressive film, true to the original source, and also full of its own identity. Fans of the original will be pleased, and a window will be open that will bring a lot of new converts. The fact that part one will also premiere when the original series is celebrating its 20th anniversary is also quite important. _Sailor Moon_ is a milestone in manga/anime, creating strong and empowered female characters with their own agency in popular fiction, and showcasing the best of what creativity can do. Our amazing cast and crew will certainly do justice to this powerful, beautiful series."  
  
Details of _Inuyasha_ have finally begun to be nailed down. The two-film series, distributed by Paramount Pictures in North America and 20th Century Fox internationally, will premiere in 2014, with the second part the following year. Joining Springbok as producers are Valhalla Entertainment (formerly Pacific Western Productions) and its founder, Gale Anne Hurd (second ex-wife of James Cameron, and was a critical part of _The Terminator_ , _Terminator 2: Judgment Day_ , _Aliens_ and _The Abyss_ ; and later producer of films like _Switchback_ , _Dante's Peak_ and the 2003 _Hulk_ ; as well as producing the recent hit TV show _The Walking Dead_ ), and Jerry Bruckheimer, best known for bombastic productions like _Top Gun_ , _Days of Thunder_ , _Crimson Tide_ , _The Rock_ , _Enemy of the State_ , _Black Hawk Down, National Treasure_ and the _Pirates of the Caribbean_ trilogy. Bruckheimer and Hurd also worked together to produce _Armageddon_ in 1998.  
  
This set of films has a script by Hurd, husband Jonathan Hensleigh (who did script doctoring on _The Rock_ and was a main writer of _Armageddon_ ), and series creator Rumiko Takahashi, with further polishing by Robin Swicord ( _Matilda_ , _Memoirs of a Geisha_ ) and further script doctoring by Carrie Fisher. Lilly Kilvert, production designer for films such as _Legends of the Fall_ , _The Crucible_ and _The Last Samurai_ , is signed to the project, with James Horner scoring. Gore Verbinski, the director best known for _The Ring_ and the _Pirates_ trilogy, as well as directing Springbok's newest animated film, _Rango_ , is in the director's chair for both films.  
  
The films boast a fairly impressive cast. Ellen Wong (Knives Chau in _Scott Pilgrim vs. the World_ ) is Kagome Higurashi, the schoolgirl who finds herself in Japan's Warring States era; Johnny Yong Bosch ( _Power Rangers_ alum and voiceover actor in many anime projects) is the titular half-demon Inuyasha; Charlet Chung portrays Kikyo, the priestess who was later reincarnated as Kagome; Kelly Hu (most recognized as Yuriko/Deathstryke in _X2_ ) is the demon slayer Sango; Karl Yune will also appear in this adaptation, as the lecherous monk Miroku; Merle Dandrige (Alyx Vance in _Half-Life 2_ and its episodic expansions and Kala in the stage musical adaptation of Disney's _Tarzan_ ) is Kaede, Kikyo's sister and elderly priestess in a nearby village; Krista Marie Yu portrays Ayame; Youki Kudoh (Pumpkin in _Geisha_ ) is Kagome's mother; Keiko Agena as Inuyasha's mother Izayoi; Adam Driver will bring his trademark intensity as Inuyasha's half-brother Sesshomaru; veteran voiceover actress Tara Strong will be the voice of the young fox demon Shippo; _Sopranos_ lead James Gandolfini provides the voice of Sesshomaru's companion Jaken; and Nicolas Cage will receive top billing in a practical effect/motion-capture blend as the antagonist Naraku. Invented for part two is the original character Caleb Hart, played by Mark Wahlberg, an American on a business trip to Japan who ends up caught at the wrong place at the wrong time, stuck with Kagome and Inuyasha's group while going between the past and the present, and is forced to play peacekeeper in the group.  
  
"I think that our version will be very much adored and loved when it comes out. Especially since Rumiko has always been on good terms with us, and we actually even helped her temper some weaknesses in her material, better planned out its execution to a satisfying end for all involved. This film will capture all of that, and more. Our group, packed with amazing talents, will all bring their A game to the project, make their mark, and provide a thrilling experience for the audience."

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"Springbok Signs Prince for a Sweetheart, Artist-Friendly Deal," _Billboard_ , February 2, 2011  
  
Exploitation Records, the record label arm of Springbok Productions, officially signed the legendary and legendarily reclusive Prince to a long-term deal. The 52-year-old multi-instrumentalist, renowned for his record-smashing success in the ‘80s, committed to an eight-album deal, with an option for four more, and the rights for compilations, unreleased material, and live recordings.  
  
To encourage this deal, Springbok essentially met Prince with everything he would ever want. First off, Exploitation Records is not actually officially signing Prince as an artist, but are pressing and distributing his albums, which remain under the control of his NPG Records imprint, following similar one-off album deals he’s made in the past. Prince will therefore maintain the rights to the masters of the albums that Springbok will distribute, and all the physical recordings. In addition, Springbok resolved an issue that has long been a thorn in Prince’s side: the ownership of the masters of his hit albums when signed to Warner Bros. Records, as well as the rights to the albums released by other artists on his Paisley Park Records label, a joint venture with Warners that lasted nine years, until Warners terminated the distribution deal. Aggressive negotiations by the Exploitation Records team convinced Warners to hand over the rights.  
  
“This is truly a landmark deal,” Jason Flom, part of Exploitation Records, states. “We not only get to work with one of the true living legends of popular music, but managed to bring closure to one of the industry’s longest-running dramas. Prince will thus have all of his music truly be his and his alone.” The artist himself was quite pleased. “Eye am truly happy 2 report that Springbok and eye will make lots of music 4 U, and that eye own everything now. Thank U, Springbok, 4 making this possible.”  
  
There is no rush or timetable for Prince to churn out a new studio album to begin the deal, but Exploitation Records plans to hit the ground running with a deluxe remasters campaign of Prince’s catalogue. Most especially of interest to fans is a deluxe campaign for _Purple Rain_ that will unfold in time for the album and film’s 30th anniversary in 2014. Exploitation Records will also remaster and reissue the works released by Paisley Park Records of various Prince side projects and non-Prince related works by the likes of The Time, Vanity 6, The Family, releases credited solely to his '90s backing group the New Power Generation, George Clinton, Mavis Staples and Ingrid Chavez.  
  
Prince set himself above many of his peers with his incomparable mastery of dozens of instruments, playing many of them himself on the same recording, as well as a fairly eclectic base of musical influences, predominantly funk, rock, R&B, pop and hip-hop. He established himself as a revolutionary in the vein of Duke Ellington, Miles Davis or John Coltrane, mixed with John Lennon and David Bowie through commercial successes like _Dirty Mind_ , _Controversy_ , _1999_ , _Purple Rain_ , _Around the World in a Day_ , _Parade_ , _Sign O’ the Times_ and _Diamonds and Pearls_. And when his albums failed to sell as much as expected or critics weren’t as impressed, his dedicated and loyal fanbase kept buying them, and many agreed that, in the words of _Rolling Stone_ 's review of his 1988 album _Lovesexy_ , “Prince’s chaff is often times more intriguing than other artists’ wheat.”  
  
However, Prince felt stymied by Warner Bros., his managers, and many former members of his inner circle by their attempts to convince him to slow his release output, and he often refused to follow their suggestions for song and single selection, tour routing, or often refused to shoot music videos. He also despised their views on the releases on his Paisley Park Records label, and their decision to try to veto them. As a result, Prince launched a blistering attack campaign against Warners, including changing his name to an unpronounceable symbol and referring to himself as a “slave.”  
  
Prince eventually won freedom from the label (but ironically, the main heads of Warners at the time, Mo Ostin, Larry Waronker and Marylou Badeaux are now members of Exploitation Records), and decided to focus on using the Internet to release his music directly, as well as switch to attracting one-off distribution and pressing deals with other labels to work on an album, where he’d then move on to the next. He worked with the now-defunct EMI America Records for _Emancipation_ in 1996, Arista Records for _Rave Un2 the Joy Fantastic_ in ’99, Columbia Records for _Musicology_ in 2004, Universal Music Group for _3121_ two years later, then back with Columbia for _Planet Earth_ the following year. Prince followed that with the _Lotusflow3r/MPLSoUND_ packaged, released and distributed directly on his own, exclusively released by Target in 2009, and his most recent album, _20Ten_ , was released as a free covermount with European newspapers.  
  
“Prince is the one who led the way regarding how the music industry is run now,” Flom states. “Were it not for him and his work to break away from Warners and take control of his music, the paradigm would never have changed, and it’s unlikely that Exploitation Records, or Springbok as a whole, would ever exist. And he caught a lot of flak for what he did in the ‘90s, and lost just about every battle along the way. But he won the war in the end.”

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"Reading of New Musical _Rebecca_ to Feature Sierra Boggess, Hugh Panaro, Carolee Carmello," by Andrew Gans, _Playbill_ , February 17, 2011  
  
Sierra Boggess ( _Love Never Dies, The Little Mermaid)_ , Hugh Panaro ( _The Phantom of the Opera, Lestat)_ and Carolee Carmello ( _Lestat_ , _The Addams Family)_ will head the cast of a March 18 industry reading of the Broadway-bound musical _Rebecca_ in New York.  
  
The reading will be directed by Tony Award winner Michael Blakemore and Francesca Zambello. Producers are the stage theatricals division of Springbok Productions (headed by Leonard Soloway, Elizabeth Williams and Anita Waxman), Ben Sprecher and Louise Forlenza for Global Broadway Productions and Norton Herrick for Herrick Entertainment.  
  
The cast for the reading will also include James Barbour, Anastasia Barzee, Don Stephenson, William Youmans and John Horton.  
  
 _Rebecca_ features original book and lyrics by Michael Kunze, music by Sylvester Levay, English book adaptation by two-time Tony Award winner Christopher Hampton _(Sunset Boulevard)_ , English lyrics by Hampton and Kunze, and direction by Blakemore ( _Kiss Me, Kate; City of Angeles; Noises Off_ ) and Zambello ( _Little Mermaid)._ This marks Springbok's third collaboration with Kunze, having brought forth his original hit Vienna musical _Elisabeth_ Stateside for a New York City Center engagement in 2007, and Kunze's hit musical with Jim Steinman, _Dance of the Vampires_ , to a successful three-year run on Broadway. Several of the actors for the reading have been involved in Springbok projects, most notably Boggess, Panaro and Carmello.  
  
Based on the classic Daphne Du Maurier novel (and later turned into an Oscar-winning film by Alfred Hitchcock), _Rebecca_ , according to press notes, "is the story of Maxim de Winter (Hugh Panaro), his new wife (Sierra Boggess) and Mrs. Danvers (Carolee Carmello), the housekeeper of his West Country estate of Manderley – where the memory of his first wife, the glamorous and mysterious Rebecca, still casts a shadow."  
  
 _Rebecca_ had its world premiere in 2006 at Vereinigte Buhnen Wien in Vienna, where it played to sold-out houses totaling more than three years. It is currently playing in Budapest, Hungary; Helsinki, Finland; and at the Imperial Theatre in Tokyo. An additional production will open in Stuttgart, Germany in November 2011 with productions currently planned for Russia and beyond. The show had its first English-language reading in 2009 in London, when for a potential West End run, but no one bit, and Springbok's involvement made Sprecher and Forlenza decide to switch to a New York opening instead.

* * *

"Legendary Pictures Eyes New Credit Line," by Marc Graser and Rachel Abrams, _Variety_ , April 15, 2011  
  
 _Tull pursuing up to $900 million for new pics, ventures_  
  
Exclusive  : Thomas Tull has always had big-picture plans for Legendary that involve more than just bankrolling a slate of Warner Bros. tentpoles. Now he’s going after some big money to make that happen.  
  
With the financial community renewing its interest in Hollywood, banks are offering more competitive rates for borrowers, enabling entrepreneurs like Tull to pursue new lines of credit to fund everything from films to TV shows, Web series, games and comic books. As first reported Friday on Variety.com, Tull has already begun talks with investors to raise $600 million to $900 million through banks, other institutional lenders and hedge funds as part of a new credit line that would run through 2016.  
  
Lead banks are said to include JPMorgan, with $200 million likely to come from institutional investors.  
  
Legendary Pictures' current credit line expires in 2013, the same year that its current distribution and financing arrangement with Warner Bros. is set to end. In 2005, the company inked a seven-year distribution deal to co-finance and co-produce 40 films, starting with _Batman Begins._ More recent pics include _Inception_ , _The Town_ , _Sucker Punch_ and _Clash of the Titans_ , whose sequel, _Wrath of the Titans_ is now lensing.  
  
New funds would be used to continue co-financing a slate of high-profile pics at WB that include the _Hangover_ sequel, the Superman reboot _Man of Steel_ , _Jack the Giant Killer,_ _The Seventh Son_ and, most likely, _The Dark Knight Rises_.  
  
At the same time, Legendary has internally been developing a growing slate of films, such as _Godzilla_ , the Guillermo del Toro-helmed _Pacific Rim_ and a big screen adaptation of game _World of Warcraft_. Company has also been ramping up efforts to expand into other platforms such as TV, digital and publishing, where it would focus on similarly high-profile pop culture fare currently favored by risk-averse Hollywood players.  
  
Reps for Legendary said the company has a policy not to comment on private discussions and presentations. Talks are said to have already begun and should continue over the next several weeks.  
  
However, financial sources close to the situation say Legendary’s move makes sense given that investors are loosening their purse strings again and are willing to free up more capital, making it the right time to lock down credit.  
  
It would have been difficult to raise $500 million a year ago because of the recession, weak stock market and the amount of money spent in the indie film arena that never got recouped. Now moneymen are increasingly feeling comfortable lending to well-collateralized projects, especially if they’re housed at companies with distribution deals in place and a strong track record.  
  
Investors are particularly interested in Legendary given the company’s record of producing tentpoles with pop-culture appeal, as well as its collateral and its ongoing distribution arrangement with WB, one banker said.  
  
Legendary’s properties recently attracted venture capitalist Jim Breyer (an investor behind Facebook, Groupon and “Angry Birds” maker Rovio) to purchase $40 million in shares from an existing shareholder.  
  
In October, Tull teamed with Fidelity Investments and Fortress Investment Group to buy out shares held by an original group of investors in the company, a move that enabled the chairman to become Legendary’s largest shareholder.  
  
The companies, which included Abry Partners, AIG Direct Investments, Bank of America, Columbia Capital, Falcon Investment Advisors and M/C Venture Partners, ponied up $400 million to help launch Legendary in 2004.  
  
Legendary is now said to be valued at more than $1 billion.

* * *

"Arnold Schwarzenegger Picks Drama _Cry Macho_ for Big-Screen Return," by Greg Kilday, _The Hollywood Reporter_ , May 4, 2011  
  
The former California governor, who also is attached to a _Terminator_ package, will play a horse trainer in the film for Springbok Productions, _Godfather_ producer Al Ruddy and _Lincoln Lawyer_ director Brad Furman.  
  
Arnold Schwarzenegger has zeroed in on the film that will mark his return to the big screen: _Cry Macho,_ a drama about a down-on-his-luck horse trainer who is hired to kidnap a 9-year-old boy. Springbok Productions, whose founders Kurt Cobain and Charlize Theron are, like Schwarzenegger, longtime investors in Planet Hollywood, will produce the film. Al Ruddy, an Oscar winner for both _The Godfather_ and _Million Dollar Baby_ and part of Springbok _,_ will join Cobain, Theron and Jennifer Todd as lead producer, while Brad Furman, who helmed the recent _The Lincoln Lawyer,_ has been tapped to direct, with filming set to begin in September.  
  
“It has always been a lifelong dream to work with Arnold,” Todd states. “Kurt, Charlize and I have known him for a long time, since the Planet Hollywood days, and starting in the last few months of his term as governor, we really began talking projects to bring him for his return to acting. This is just the first of quite a few to come.”  
  
"I guarantee that you'll get another look at Arnold Schwarzenegger in this movie," Ruddy said. "Arnold always plays these big muscular guys, but there's a sweetness to Arnold in real life, and we want to bring that sweetness to the screen. Now that Brad's met with Arnold, he's convinced there's an accessibility and vulnerability there that he wants to bring out."  
  
The project, which Ruddy has been nurturing for years, will be financed by Bill Block's QED International, which will begin offering it to international buyers in Cannes next week. Block will serve as exec producer along with QED's Paul Hanson, and Springbok figures Ted Field, Robert W. Cort, and David V. Picker. The deal, hammered out by the actor's reps at CAA, calls for Schwarzenegger to receive $12.5 million plus 25% of first-dollar gross. Ruddy and Schwarzenegger also will end up co-owning the negative on the film, in a concession blessed by Springbok.  
  
While the former governor also is attached to a _Terminator_ package that is being offered to studios, and Springbok has offered yet another project for him, a sequel to the 1993 film _Last Action Hero_ , with _Macho_ , he is opting for a movie that is more a character study than a full-blown action piece -- although some action elements have been added to accommodate the star.  
  
The film is based on the 1975 novel, _Cry Macho,_ by N. Richard Nash, who also wrote the play _The Rainmaker._ Nash, who died in 2000, wrote the screenplay, which Ruddy has re-optioned over the years, including after he joined Springbok in 2004. "I just would never let go of this one," Ruddy, 81, said, “and Springbok saw as much potential in it as I did.” Actors ranging from Burt Lancaster to Pierce Brosnan have been interested in the lead role. And at one point, it looked as if Clint Eastwood might star in and direct. Because he didn't want to lose control of the property, Ruddy said, he took it with him to Springbok, but never looked for any major studios to deliver it to, preferring to find ways to package it independently.  
  
Schwarzenegger, 63, will play Mike, a once well-regarded horse trainer whose wife and son have died. His former boss makes him an over he can't refuse: $400,000 to kidnap the boss' trust fund son, who is living with the man's ex-wife in Mexico. But when Mike locates the boy, a real troublemaker, the ex-wife doesn't want the kid. But as Mike and the boy head back to the States, with the Federales are on their trail, they develop a father-son bond of their own.  
  
"If it works, and I think it will," Ruddy said, "this could be a classic. There's an emotional line to the story that really works. At the end of the movie, I'm hoping audiences will be laughing and crying at the same time."

* * *

"Arnold Schwarzenegger’s _Governator, Cry Macho, Terminator_ on Hold as He Halts Acting Career," by Tim Appello, _The Hollywood Reporter_ , May 19, 2011  
  
The news comes amid the unfolding scandal surrounding the child he fathered while married to now-estranged wife Maria Shriver.  
  
Arnold Schwarzenegger is putting the brakes on his acting career in the wake of the unfolding scandal surrounding the child he fathered while married to Maria Shriver. The former California governor’s lawyer Patrick Knapp released a statement Thursday saying that Schwarzenegger will not be acting in the immediate future.  
  
"At the request of Arnold Schwarzenegger, we asked Creative Artists Agency to inform all his motion picture projects currently underway or being negotiated to stop planning until further notice," the statement reads. "Gov. Schwarzenegger is focusing on personal matters and is not willing to commit to any production schedules or timelines. This includes _Cry Macho_ , the _Terminator_ franchise and other projects under consideration. We will resume discussions when Gov. Schwarzenegger decides."  
  
The immediate impact of the decision will be felt most by producers of _Cry Macho,_ which is in pre-production and was to mark Schwarzenegger’s return to acting after years running California.  
  
 _Cry Macho_ producer Albert Ruddy declined to comment beyond the statement issued by Schwarzenegger’s team. On Tuesday, he told _THR_ that he was certain shooting would begin Aug. 24 despite the paternity scandal.  
  
“I’ve seen scandal after scandal,” Ruddy said Tuesday, “and after a few months, nobody remembers it. It’s totally irrelevant. After Osama and the Wall Street prosecutions, who’s talking about Charlie Sheen (referring to his recent firing from _Two and a Half Men_ )? All you have to do in America is keep your mouth shut for a day or two."  
  
However, Springbok Productions, the main producer of the project, officially nixed the film soon after Ruddy’s response. “In light of recent events, _Cry Macho_ is no longer considered an active project for us,” CEO Jennifer Todd stated. “There are simply too many plot elements that would hit too close to home for Arnold and his family. We don’t feel too disappointed in losing the film, since this is a moment where healing is required. I speak for everyone when I say that all our thoughts and best wishes are with Arnold, Maria and the children.”  
  
Earlier Thursday, the producer of the animated series _The Governator_ , starring Schwarzenegger as a superhero fighting crime in a lair secretly located beneath the Los Angeles home he shares with wife Maria, told _THR_ that the scandal will not impact the show.  
  
"The U.S. broadcaster has not pulled out," A2 CEO Andy Heyward said just hours before Schwarzenegger's announcement. "It will be announced June 14 at [the] Licensing Show, in Las Vegas. The series is fictional of course, and that's what we are focused on. Broadcast begins worldwide in September 2012."  
  
Hours after Schwarzenegger's announcement, TMZ reported that a rep for the show said, "In light of recent events, A Squared Entertainment, POW, Stan Lee Comics and Archie Comics have chosen to not go forward with the _Governator_ project."  
  
Schwarzenegger’s other planned project, the proposed reboot of the _Terminator_ franchise with Megan Ellison’s Annapurna Pictures and director Justin Lin ( _Fast Five_ ), is in the early stages of development. Springbok also has a development deal for Schwarzenegger to do a sequel to his 1993 film _Last Action Hero_ , and as there isn’t even an outline for that yet, that movie is still very likely to occur down the line.

* * *

"GE Wishes To Divest Itself of NBCUniversal, Sells 35 percent Stake to Comcast," by Floyd Norris, _The New York Times_ , June 1, 2011  
  
Today, General Electric, longtime parent company of the NBCUniversal conglomerate, has sold a 35 percent stake to cable giant Comcast, in a plan to divest itself of every share in time. GE had hoped to sell more to Comcast, but the FCC and SEC prohibited Comcast from receiving a controlling stake, stating that having a cable company take control of a media conglomerate would set a disturbing precedent.  
  
This is just the latest step in the long, winding, complex road regarding ownership of NBC and Universal Pictures, that has started since their original parent company, Music Corporation of America, or MCA, sold itself. After ownership stakes by the likes of RCA (then still an independent group that included electronics as well as the record label), things changed in 1990. At that point, inspired by Sony's recent purchase of CBS Music, Columbia Pictures and TriStar Pictures, MCA was purchased by Panasonic (then merely a brand name being sold by the parent company Matsushita), in a massive deal. It was a surprising deal, clearly inspired simply as just another deal in the Japanese asset price bubble of the time.  
  
However, while Sony's company bosses in Tokyo have practiced a very laissez-faire attitude regarding its American holdings and left them to basically govern themselves, MCA's new owners in Osaka were not so trusting. While Universal and NBC continued runs of profitability, the corporate cultures simply did not mesh, and they chafed under the strict new leash they were under. Panasonic kept a tight control of the purse strings and worked to slash expenses wherever possible. Panasonic also came to resent the purchase and wanted out. In 1996, they sold 80 percent of their stake to Seagram, the Canadian beverage company, who spun off their control of DuPont to finance the purchase. This came at the same time as the now-disgraced David Geffen moved behind the scenes, after having sold his label to MCA, helped arrange Seagram's 1998 purchase of PolyGram, and its assorted labels like Interscope Records, to create the Universal Music Group in a mega-merger that led to many artists that had signed on being orphaned and thousands of record executives losing their jobs. Seagram also purchased the remaining stake from Panasonic.  
  
Seagram ended up also having a bad case of regret, as the former MCA was not as steady in earnings as DuPont and their earnings and stock shares were erratic. Seagram also ended up becoming bankrupt, its brand only surviving because Coca-Cola bought the rights. Vivendi, the French privatized water giant, bought the conglomerate and all of its holdings, and stability returned, at least until 2004. Vivendi sold 80 percent of NBCUniversal, as the film and television group was now called, to GE, but chose to retain full ownership of UMG, which it still holds. GE has long been a hugely profitable company, especially during the tenure of Jack Welch as CEO, with lots of products to its name. But even a steady and rock-solid company like GE was affected by the Great Recession, because of the lines of credit to other banks, especially NBCUniversal. GE wanted to offload its position and minimize exposure.  
  
Starting in 2009, GE began having talks with Comcast to buy a controlling stake of the conglomerate, while it also moved to purchase the remaining 20 percent of Vivendi's stake to keep things simplified before any such sale took place. (The Vivendi purchase was finalized after New Year's.) They expected that doing this would be easy, as the SEC has long seldom turned a critical eye to so-called vertical mergers (one type of company buying a company in another market or specialty), compared to horizontal mergers (one type of company buying another company in the same business and market). However, they, along with the FCC, refused to bless the proposed sale. "A cable conglomerate taking control of a media group sets a disturbing precedent," as the decision reads. "Comcast can easily influence favored nations status for itself in NBC and Universal, setting low rates for any and all customers subscribed to Comcast, compared to other cable providers, and slant news coverage to be incredibly biased to itself. This could easily set a trend where cable and telecom companies keep moving to chew up the landscape and leave nothing behind. In fact, a Comcast takeover of NBCUniversal would actually be far more problematic than say, Disney buying another studio, because in that case, proper divestment concessions would be put in place to ensure such a merger wouldn't be anticompetitive and any stake of the movie business would still be below 50 percent."  
  
GE still seeks to offload the rest of its ownership and find other parties to buy other stakes. Naturally, this leads to questions about what new name, if any, could be used for this mixture of parent companies. Some suggest that the MCA and/or PolyGram names might possibly be revived.

* * *

"Blockbuster Heads Discuss "Clicks, Bricks and Flicks" Operation," by Anne Thompson, _Variety,_ June 3, 2011  
  
John Antioco and Reed Hastings are not names people would know off the bat, but they basically created the modern face of movie rental. Antioco has been the CEO of Blockbuster Video since 1996, and Hastings is the President of Blockbuster Entertainment, their streaming video service that has become first and foremost in the company's strategy. "Reed brought a great opportunity to us," Antioco states. "He saw the value in the Internet, mail-order movies, on-demand video and streaming and how Blockbuster could be poised to lead the industry and grow. He brought Blockbuster into the 21st century, and he deserves every accolade given to him."  
  
Hastings, relaxed and modest, just shrugs. "Well, anyone could have come up with the idea. All people had to look at was how the music industry was embracing the opportunities that the Internet was giving us, how they were quick to adopt digital downloads as the next evolutionary step. Porn companies were the first taking full advantage of streaming video online, despite how expensive broadband and bandwidth capacity was back then, and making a killing through the credit card charges. Thus, it wasn't hard to make the next leap and see that movies could do the same. Especially given how people were dissatisfied with the rental experience of late fees and fees for not rewinding the tapes. I was looking into setting up my own company to sell or rent DVDs through mail, and Blockbuster, especially John, took a vested interest, bought my work, and incorporated it."  
  
The work has definitely paid off. In addition to Blockbuster's innumerable and omnipresent traditional brick and mortar stores, planned to be phased out by 2050, vending machine kiosks can be found in many locations where people can rent DVDs and Blu-rays for a dollar a day. The mail-order business is a thriving component, where customers can hold onto the movies for as long as they want for the same flat fee. Blockbuster Entertainment takes full advantage of the parent company's contacts in Hollywood and New York to hold absolutely every movie and TV series that is non-pornographic and whose masters or negatives haven't been lost for anyone with an Internet connection to watch over their desktop PCs, laptops, tablets, smartphones and video game consoles for a subscription fee of either $10 a month or $60 a year. "We call it, 'clicks, bricks and flicks,'" Antioco replies. "It has been an absolute game changer, the ultimate killer app. No one else was prepared for it. That's why Hollywood Video and the others all went belly up."  
  
Now, Hastings and Antioco are taking what they say is the next step forward in their strategy, the creation of original content solely for Blockbuster Entertainment. The plan, which goes online in 2013, calls for the continuous rollout of movies and shows that can only be seen through the streaming service. "It will be absolutely everything," Hastings says. "Every genre, every major studio and company, major talent involved. They all were happy to sign and commit to the plan, though some, like Disney, plan to do a sequential, step-by-step rollout, saying they want to test the waters with Marvel product before giving new shows and films from the likes of Walt Disney Pictures, Walt Disney Animation Studios, Touchstone Pictures, Pixar and Lucasfilm. And of course, Springbok Productions didn't hesitate at all. They already have an option for an animated series that will be part of our inaugural rollout."  
  
Antioco becomes serene at that. "Basically, we have everyone locked up. We thought ahead and of course locked them into ironclad contracts with non-compete clauses, so these studios and companies and channels can't break off and form their own streaming services down the line. The only real competitors we could have are YouTube, though we also have a deal for YouTube original content as well, and the series that premiere first on premium cable channels like HBO, Starz and Showtime, though we show their content too. The only groups that could have a legitimate claim to competing with us would've been the likes of Amazon or Apple, but much like how the record labels and artists cornered the market in selling MP3 downloads and prevented them from creating their own stores on their sites, we cornered this market and basically made it almost impossible for them to break ground."  
  
When asked why no one else attempted something like this before, Hastings adds a correction. "Well, Hollywood Video actually did wake up and try to get in, too little too late. They even were the first to attempt making exclusive content, which were going to be released only on DVDs that could only be rented at their locations, and all the standard fees. To say it didn't take off would be an understatement."

* * *

"MySpace Sold to Specific Media By Murdoch's News Corp.," BBC News Website, June 29, 2011

News Corporation has sold its ailing social networking site MySpace to online advertising firm Specific Media. News Corp. paid $580 million (£361 million) for MySpace in 2005, but users and advertisers left the site for rival social sites like Facebook and Twitter. The sale terms were not disclosed, but there were unconfirmed reports that price paid was as low as $35 million.

Pop star and actor Justin Timberlake will take a stake in the business, Specific Media said. He will play "a major role in developing the creative direction and strategy for the company moving forward," the company said.

Specific Media was founded in 1999 by three brothers - Tim, Chris and Russell Vanderhook - and is based in Irvine, California. MySpace was a leading social networking site when it was bought by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. But the business was eclipsed by rivals, and despite attempts to revive MySpace's fortunes the site has been a financial millstone. The Reuters news agency cited a News Corp-owned blogging site as reporting that MySpace was sold for $35 million.

Specific Media said: "We look forward to combining our platforms to drive the next generation of digital innovation."

Losses  
News Corp's chief operating officer Chase Carey said in November that the losses at MySpace were "unsustainable". Although News Corp. does not publish specific results for MySpace in its accounts, the "other" segment, which includes the social network, reported a second quarter operating loss of $156 million- $31 million worse than a year earlier.

According to tracking firm comScore, MySpace had 21.8 million unique monthly US visitors in August 2005 compared with Facebook's 8.3 million. By May 2011, Facebook's monthly US visitors had risen to 157.2 million compared with MySpace's 34.9 million, comScore said. Facebook has nearly 700 million members worldwide.

* * *

"Blockbuster's Original Programming Inks Mega Deal For David Fincher's _House of Cards_ ," by Nellie Andreeva, _Deadline Hollywood_ , June 30, 2011  
  
It's no secret by now that the video streaming service of movie rental and purchasing juggernaut Blockbuster is becoming an original programming player, as Blockbuster's CEO John Antioco and Blockbuster Entertainment head Reed Hastings announced several months ago. But the nature of what its first such original programming would be was anyone's guess. Until now. In what is probably the biggest gamble in its 26-year history, I hear Blockbuster has outbid several major cable networks, including HBO and AMC, for Media Rights Capital’s drama series _House of Cards_ , executive produced and directed by David Fincher and exec produced by and starring Christian Bale.  
  
Negotiations are still going on, but I hear Blockbuster, thanks to Ted Sarandos, the newly minted president of creative programming, landed the drama project by offering a staggering commitment of two seasons, or 26 episodes. Given that the price tag for a high-end drama is in the $4 million-$6 million an episode range and that a launch of a big original series commands tens of millions of dollars for promotion, the deal is believed to be worth more than $100 million and could change the way people consume TV shows.  
  
Ever since Liberty Media chairman John Malone in October drew a comparison between Blockbuster Entertainment and HBO, industry experts have speculated whether Blockbuster would become the next HBO by venturing into originals. HBO, too, established itself as premium cable movie channel before hitting gold with original series that have now become its bread and butter. Blockbuster, which dominates the movie rental and streaming markets, had said many times that it was looking into the prospect, but had no such firm timeline. Antioco and Hastings announced the plan several months ago, and that original programming would start rolling out in 2013.  
  
Given the strong interest in _House of Cards_ from multiple networks, observers had speculated that the project may get an episodic commitment, but a massive two-season order is pretty unheard of these days. Going straight to series itself is a risky proposition as attested by NBC, which recently tried it before reverting to the traditional pilot model. Besides the sandals-and-toga _Rome_ , which was a co-production with the BBC, HBO has piloted pretty much all of its projects, including those with A-list talent such as Martin Scorsese/Terence Winter’s _Boardwalk Empire_ and Michael Mann/David Milch’s _Luck_ starring Dustin Hoffman. AMC went straight to series on _The Walking Dead_ but with a modest six-episode order. _Rome_ and Fox’s CGI extravaganza _Terra Nova_ started off with 13-episode orders. Starz, which has been going straight-to-series with its dramas, ordered 10 episodes of _Camelot_ and 8 of _Boss._ Snatching a high-profile project like _House of Cards_ as its inaugural original program is certain to put Blockbuster on the map. But by committing to air/stream and market a 26-episode original series, something it has never done before, it will also put the company to the test.  
  
Since its beginnings in 1985, Blockbuster has taken on a life of its own as the premier service for rental and purchase of movies, with its ubiquitous brick-and-mortar stores all over the world. In 1997, sensing the way that record labels were taking advantage of the power of the Internet by selling music this way, Blockbuster decided to fully commit to a long term plan of rolling out rental kiosks in nontraditional store locations, a mail-order delivery service for movies, and on-demand video, with plans to be profitable by 2008. The plan paid rich dividends by that point, especially with having every single movie and television program ever made (that hasn't been lost) hosted on the streaming service. Moving to original programming was seemed like a natural step forward, and every single studio and production company has signed contracts with Blockbuster to provide original programming for the service. Springbok Productions, for example, has an option for an animated series with them, originally slated to be part of the inaugural rollout, but was moved back to 2014 to ensure the details are ironed out.  
  
Meanwhile, MRC has built its TV business on a direct-to-series model with such projects as animated comedies _The Life & Times of Tim _and _The Ricky Gervais Show_ , the short-lived series for the CW’s Sunday block and the Lifetime comedy _Rita Rocks_ , which went through pilot but in a two-pilot deal with the network guaranteeing that one of the pilots will go to series.  
  
In his TV directorial debut, Fincher will helm the pilot for _House of Cards,_ which is based on the book and British miniseries of the same name. Fincher is executive producing with Eric Roth, Joshua Donen as well as Bale and Willem Dafoe and Dana Brunetti of Trigger Street Productions, the company formed by latter and Kevin Spacey before the latter's disgrace and which was saved from going under thanks to a cash infusion from Springbok and Dafoe taking over Spacey's position. (Of course, the big question is how Bale will manage to fit the series into his schedule along with other film projects in mind for him after finishing his next turn as Batman for _The Dark Knight Rises_.) The political-thriller novel _House of Cards_ , written by Michael Dobbs, a former Conservative Party chief of staff, is set at the end of Margaret Thatcher’s tenure as prime minister and follows a British politician with his eye on the top job. In 1990, it was adapted by the BBC as a miniseries written by Andrew Davies and starring Ian Richardson. Fincher’s adaptation, set in the U.S., was written by playwright-screenwriter Beau Willimon ( _The Ides of March_ ).

* * *

"Barry Minkow: From scammer, to preacher, to defendant," by Dean Calbraith, _San Diego Union-Reader_ , July 3, 2011

In one of his final sermons at Mira Mesa's Community Bible Church this spring, Rev. Barry Minkow warned that the world was in its final days, based on all the Biblical prophecies that seemed to be coming true.

“There will be greedy preachers…,” he said with a nervous-sounding laugh as he read aloud one of the prophecies. “In their greed they will make clever lies to get hold of your money. But God condemned them long ago and their destruction will not be delayed.”

Whether or not the apocalypse is truly nigh, Minkow’s own world came to spinning to a halt just two weeks after that sermon, when he stepped down from his leadership at the church after pleading guilty in a stock manipulation case that cost one of the nation's largest homebuilders nearly half a billion dollars of market capital. Although he still has a home in Poway, he has since left San Diego County for his wife's hometown in rural Tennessee.

This Thursday, Minkow faces a sentencing hearing in a Florida courtroom where federal prosecutors have recommended a five-years jail term. If the judge goes along, it will mark Minkow’s second stint behind bars, after serving seven years for one of the biggest pyramid schemes of the 1980s. And it will put a major dent in Minkow's 15-year attempt to resurrect his reputation by transforming himself into a fraud-busting preacher.

Teen-aged conman 

Minkow first came to the public eye in 1982 when, at age 15, he launched the ZZZZ Best carpet-cleaning service from his parents’ garage in the San Fernando Valley.

The up-by-the-bootstraps tale of a high-school sophomore starting his own company garnered nationwide publicity - including a guest spot on Oprah Winfrey's talk show - which helped him grow the firm beyond his wildest dreams.

In 1986, 19-year-old Minkow became the youngest person ever to head a publicly traded company. Within a year, the company was worth $280 million on the NASDAQ exchange and Minkow had his own Ferrari, BMW and mansion in Woodland Hills.

But unbeknownst to the public, Minkow had long funded his company partly through check-kiting schemes, insurance fraud, loans from crime figures and fraudulent charges on his customers’ credit cards. He had even stolen and pawned his grandmother's jewelry.

Things got worse after the firm launched a new division, which supposedly renovated buildings that had been damaged by flooding or fire. That division had close to zero business, but Minkow inflated its image by forging sales documents and creating fake offices, work sites and clients.

When customers started reporting that Minkow had misused their credit cards, the entire company began to unravel. As its stock price plunged, investors and lenders lost more than $100 million.

In 1988, Minkow was sentenced to 25 years in prison, but gained release in 1995 due to good behavior, including working with the Federal Bureau of Investigation on ways of combating white-collar crime. After his release, he went on the lecture circuit, talking to FBI agents, bankers, accountants and business executives about how to fight fraud.

Gary Zeune, a fraud consultant in Ohio, included Minkow as a guest speaker at a number of events during the first few months after his release. "I told my clients that if they wanted to understand fraud, they should hear from someone who’s done it," he said. "And Barry's a fabulous speaker. Frankly, he's better than I am."

Zeune says that after the talks, people would sometimes ask him if he really thought Minkow had changed. Zeune, who has used dozens of ex-convicts as speakers, has the same answer regarding each of them: "I can’t say what’s in somebody’s heart. I can only tell you if they’re an effective speaker. I could never extend my expertise to say whether a convict is truly remorseful about what they've done."

Pastor Barry 

But Minkow says he did change dramatically after becoming a born-again Christian (he had been raised Jewish) and founding a jailhouse Bible study group shortly after his arrest.

At a sentencing hearing in 1989, U.S. District Judge Dickran Tevrizian was skeptical of the conversion. "You don't have a conscience," he told Minkow.

While in prison, however, Minkow continued to study the Bible, earning master's degrees in divinity and church through a correspondence course offered by Jerry Falwell's Liberty University. And once he got out, he landed a job as pastor of evangelism at the Church at Rocky Peak in Chatsworth and in 1997 was hired as senior pastor at Community Bible through a unanimous vote of the board of deacons.

"After prayer, the Lord led us in a comforting in our heart that this was the man he had for us," Bill Vogt, the church's media and technical coordinator, said at the time.

Several years later, Tony Nevarez, who chaired the board of elders, rejected the notion that Minkow might have had ulterior motives for becoming a minister.

“If Barry was doing this for show, he'd do something else," he said. "He certainly doesn't get paid as much money as he should or could."

Minkow's sermons matched the fundamentalist leanings of his congregation. In a nod to his criminal past, his first sermon centered on fraud. But he wasn't talking about stock-market fraud. Instead, he focused on Charles Darwin's theory of evolution.

"Scientific evidence has revealed that evolution is not scientific and is not factual, and yet is being taught as if it is," he said. "That is fraudulent."

Aided with some high-tech wizardry, such as giant projection screens that displayed Bible verses and other images during his sermons, he wowed the congregation with his knowledge of scriptures and his easy-going style, which included walking through the pews as he preached and singling out congregants by name during the sermons. After services concluded, he made a habit of inviting congregants to his house for Sunday dinner.

"I was very impressed with his command of Bible history and really enjoyed his sermons, as everyone else did," said local attorney Michael Brown, an attorney and former securities regulator who attended the church. "He absolutely seemed sincere in his faith. I never doubted or questioned his sincerity for a second."

Born-again fraud-buster 

Whether by happenstance or design, Minkow’s position as a minister dovetailed nicely with another job that he created for himself: scam-buster at the Fraud Discovery Institute, an investigative outfit he founded in the church’s offices, using church employees as staffers.

Minkow's launched the institute after a parishioner asked him to check into an Orange County money management firm that was promising sky-high returns on investments. After a cursory investigation, Minkow suspected that the firm, Financial Advisory Consultants, was little more than a pyramid scheme, paying older investors with money it was taking in from newer investors. Minkow reported his hunch to federal authorities, who subsequently found that the firm had bilked investors out of $300 million. After a guilty plea, the head of the firm was sentenced to 20 years in jail.

Over the next few years, Minkow helped the authorities with at least 10 other cases of fraud. His cooperation helped lead Judge Tevrizian to end his probation in 2002. "He has done some good things," Tevrizian later explained. "He's uncovered several hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of frauds. And I give him credit for that."

With the help of church employees, who ended up working part-time for the church and part-time for the institute, Minkow was soon scanning the stock market to look for companies for signs of fraud: for instance, where the top executives had lied about their educational achievements, or where there were discrepancies in financial statements, or where they promised unrealistically high returns, or where there was any hint that they might be involved in a pyramid scheme.

At first, most of Minkow’s targets were tiny penny-stock firms that often have shoddier financial records and attract less regulatory scrutiny than the larger companies on the market. When he found something questionable, Minkow would pass it along to the Federal Bureau of Investigation or the Securities and Exchange Commission, while almost simultaneously posting a report on the Internet, with a note that regulators had already been alerted.

Although the targeted companies were often minuscule, they gave Minkow the chance to build a reputation as a fraud-buster. Such major media outlets as _The Wall Street Journal_ and the Bloomberg news wire began reporting his allegations and he became a repeated guest on Neil Cavuto's business shows on Fox News, but the biggest coup arguably came in 2005 when _60 Minutes_ ran a report portraying Minkow as a reformed crime-buster.

"If you were going to start a hall of fame for conmen, Barry Minkow would be one of the first inductees...," reporter Steve Kroft said at the beginning of the segment. "Now Barry Minkow is back in the spotlight, not for committing fraud but for exposing it. "

During the segment, Minkow told Kroft that he suspected that an investment firm in Dallas was "a financial crime in progress." _60 Minutes_ equipped him with a hidden camera and sent him to a meeting with the couple who ran the firm, where he pretended to be a minister interested investing his church's funds into the scheme. Minkow subsequently charged that the couple had made "misrepresentation after misrepresentation" during their chat. And a fraud consultant told _60 Minutes_ that the firm seemed to have the indications of being a Ponzi scheme.

_Minkow_ the movie 

As it turned out, Texas authorities investigated the Dallas firm after the _60 Minutes_ story aired and did not find enough evidence to file any charges. Nevertheless, the image of Minkow acting as an undercover investigator for _60 Minutes_ bolstered his image as a reformed crusader. Some of his parishioners were so proud of him that they pooled their money to fund a $4 million Hollywood version of his life, featuring such actors as James Caan, Armand Assante and Ving Rhames in supporting roles and Mark "Luke Skywalker" Hamill and Talia Shire as his parents.

To play the leading role in the movie, which was originally titled _Redemption_ but then changed to _Minkow_ , Minkow could think of nobody better than himself, although he had to find a more youthful actor for his ZZZZ Best days: 27-year-old Justin Baldoni, probably best known for his recurring role in NBC's _Heroes_.

"Now you're a big movie star," Cavuto told Minkow late last year, after airing clips from the as-yet unreleased film. "This movie is going to win an Oscar."

For Minkow, the moral of the story was something he had told Kroft at the end of the _60 Minutes_ segment: "I want everybody who has ever failed to know that they can come back from failure. You can take what you used to use for evil and manipulative reasons and to hurt people, and use those same talents and abilities to help them. And I believe people can change!"

Help from hedge funds 

Not long after the _60 Minutes_ show aired, Minkow’s growing fame - and his skill at short sales – brought him to the attention of several major stock speculators on Wall Street, notably another self-admitted scam artist from the 1980s, Sam Antar. With some help from Antar and Wall Street hedge funds, Minkow’s tiny Fraud Discovery Institute was about to become a money-making machine.

At roughly the same time as the teenaged Minkow had been peddling his carpet-cleaning services at ZZZZ Best, the slightly older Antar was chief financial officer of the Crazy Eddie electronics chain, run by his cousin Ed “Crazy Eddie” Antar and staffed by other family members.

The Antar clan engaged in massive fraud at Crazy Eddie: falsifying the books, laundering money, embezzling millions of dollars. When the firm collapsed in the late 1980s, prosecutors dubbed Ed Antar as “the Darth Vader of capitalism.” He was eventually sentenced to eight years in jail and $150 million in fines, besides facing $1 billion in claims through civil suits. Sam Antar pleaded guilty to three felonies, but because he cooperated with the federal case against his kin, he stayed out of jail.

In recent years, Sam Antar – like Minkow – has made a career of both identifying corporate frauds and shorting the stocks of companies accused of fraud. After hearing what Minkow was doing in 2006, he sent him a check for $100,000.

In court depositions, Minkow, who describes the tough-talking, cigar-chomping Antar as “a spiritual advisor,” said the money was to thank him for setting such a good example. Minkow says Antar told him “you've kind of been an example for me that you can come back from failure. You've helped me out a lot, and I just wanted to help you out, what you do uncovering fraud.”

On his “White Collar Fraud” blog, Antar says simply that he gave the money to help defray the costs of Minkow's investigations.

The money allowed Minkow to go after bigger targets. He soon set his sights on network marketing firms, which pay their sales workers not only for the sales they make individually, but for the sales of other people they recruit. The practice has been around since the 1940s and is used by such well-known firms as Avon, Amway, Mary Kay, Tupperware and Electrolux, but critics often charge that it’s little more than a pyramid scheme.

Going short 

In late 2006, after attending a conference on network marketing, Minkow decided the critics were right and soon began to target USANA Health Services, which uses network marketing to sell diet and health-related products.

In depositions, Minkow says three hedge funds gave him a total of $200,000 for the USANA investigation: $150,000 from Antar (besides his earlier contribution), $40,000 from Whitney Tilson, head of the T2 Funds; and $10,000 from Tony Braun, head of Cactus Capital. Since Minkow's chief investigator, Juan Lopez, kept his fees on USANA to practically zero, the money was mostly profit, Minkow said.

On Feb. 21, 2007, Minkow sent a report to _The Wall Street Journal,_ the FBI, the SEC and Internal Revenue Service, accusing USANA of having an unsustainable pyramid-like structure and charging that it was at risk of having its profits siphoned to Liechtenstein by an owner who had recently moved there.

Some of the charges were based on theories and suppositions with a debatable grounding in fact. Others were just not true, USANA would later say. But whether true or false, sending the report to federal authorities virtually guaranteed that they would investigate the charges, which would make investors jittery.

At around the time he wrote the report, Minkow took out a “short” position on USANA’s stock, essentially betting the stock would soon go down. In depositions, Minkow said Antar also shorted the stock, although he was not sure how much or when. Minkow said that when Antar talked to him about USANA, it was along the lines of “Hook me up, bro. Don’t let me hang in.”

When Minkow’s report was released to the public on March 15, 2007, the stock value plunged 15 percent on the first day and slumped by a total of 42 percent over the next month, dropping from $60 to $35. Besides sending the report to friendly reporters in _The Wall Street Journal_ and other papers, Minkow bought a Google ad, so that anyone doing a Google search for USANA would be directed to his report.

USANA eventually sued, saying that Minkow’s attack was “riddled with exaggerations, half-truths, and plainly false statements.” USANA suggested that Minkow's goal was "not only to devastate USANA..., but also to line Mr. Minkow’s own pockets.”

But because of laws protecting critics of publicly traded companies, there was little USANA could do.

U.S. District Court Judge Tena Campbell in USANA’s home state of Utah ruled that Minkow’s criticism of USANA was protected as free speech. Campbell said USANA could still sue Minkow for stock manipulation but that an out-of-court settlement would save both parties “the cost and inconvenience of protracted litigation.”

USANA agreed and settled out of court. Although both USANA and Minkow were barred from discussing the settlement, sources close to the lawsuit say USANA paid Minkow a substantial sum to stop his attacks. USANA’s stock rose 7 percent the day the case was settled, showing exactly how much shareholders had feared the Minkow effect.

Over the next several years, Minkow went after a series of other network marketing firms, including Herbalife, which sells diet products, and NuSkin, which makes skin-care goods. In some of these cases, a pattern emerged:

Step 1: Minkow fires a barrage of accusations against a company.

Step 2: As share prices decline on the bad news, anyone who is shorting the stock – whether Minkow or his hedge fund friends – makes a quick profit.

Step 3: The company denies or downplays the charges and either sues or threatens to sue.

Step 4: As the company confronts the costs of litigation and the uphill challenge of attacking Minkow’s free-speech rights, it arranges a private out-of-court settlement. Sources close to the litigation say that in several cases, the settlements ranged from $100,000 to $300,000.

Step 5: Minkow agrees to stop making accusations and occasionally backtracks on his previous charges.

So while officially combating fraud, Minkow was making money through three different sources: shorting stocks, taking contributions from hedge funds and arranging monetary settlements with at least some of his targets.

In late 2008, he decided to go after the nation’s third-biggest homebuilder, Lennar Corp. But that target would prove to be his downfall.

* * *

"Barry Minkow's half-billion dollar blitzkrieg," by Dean Calbraith, _San Diego Union-Reader_ , July 6, 2011

As a self-professed scam-buster at Mira Mesa’s Fraud Discovery Institute, conman-turned-minister Barry Minkow quickly evolved from exposing shady financial advisers to making money from the setbacks of companies he accused of fraud.

Starting roughly five years ago, Minkow became adept at “shorting” companies — essentially placing bets that their stock would go down — at the same time that he released negative reports on the companies, ensuring that their stock prices would plummet.

In the reverse of a classic “pump and dump” scheme — where speculators push stock prices to sky-high levels and make a quick profit by selling off their stock — Minkow was engaging in a process that his critics dubbed “distort and short.”

In late 2008, Minkow prepared to take on his biggest target yet: Lennar Corp., the nation’s third-largest homebuilder. By the time he was through, Lennar’s stock would lose more than 40 percent of its value. And Minkow would be on his way back to jail.

After pleading guilty to stock manipulation, Minkow is slated to be sentenced on July 21, which will likely entail a return to jail after spending seven years behind bars for one of the biggest scams of the 1980s.

Minkow was originally slated to be sentenced this coming Thursday, but today the judge agreed with Minkow’s motion to postpone it for two weeks.

In his guilty plea, Minkow says that even though attorneys advised him his practice of criticizing companies and then shorting their stocks was legal, “at best it was unethical and probably should not have occurred.”

In depositions, he says his attack on Lennar began for altruistic motives: He wanted to help out a developer in Rancho Santa Fe and keep his bank from going under. His biggest mistake, he suggests, was not doing enough due diligence to see if the developer’s claims about Lennar were true.

”I was just interested in my bank” 

In the fall of 2008, as the world’s financial system teetered on the brink of collapse, with loan defaults skyrocketing and major financial institutions going out of business, executives at San Diego’s tiny 1st Pacific Bank were getting jittery about its financial future.

Although 1st Pacific was facing an uptick in real estate foreclosures, one of its biggest problems came from developer Nicolas Marsch III, who was embroiled in a pair of lawsuits with Lennar over two posh developments in Rancho Santa Fe: The Bridges and The Lakes.

Marsch had previously borrowed $7 million from 1st Pacific, telling his bankers that he was owed hundreds of millions of dollars from Lennar and pledging to repay the loan as soon as Lennar paid him the money he was owed.

But with no end in sight for the Lennar lawsuits, 1st Pacific began to worry that the loan would never be repaid. And for a small bank like 1st Pacific, which had less than $45 million in shareholders’ equity, a default on $7 million was a very serious matter. Coupled with smaller defaults from other borrowers, it could be enough to force the bank out of business.

In mid-November 2008, 1st Pacific executive Glenn Marshall met with Marsch about the loan. Marsch had good news for him. He had just read an article in The Wall Street Journal highlighting Barry Minkow’s ability to root out corporate fraud.

The article referred to Minkow as a “corporate sleuth and sometime short-seller... (who) served prison time for the ZZZZ Best stock swindle in the 1980s, but has won kudos from the FBI since his release for his role in uncovering frauds on the Internet, in the real-estate field and elsewhere.”

Marsch told Marshall that a person like Minkow might be able to help assist in his fraud case against Lennar. In particular, he thought Minkow could help him track down a Lennar worker who had written him an anonymous letter that echoed some of the charges he made in his suits.

As it turned out, Marshall was quite familiar with Minkow. “He actually maintains bank accounts with us here at 1st Pacific,” Marshall said, according to Marsch’s deposition in the case. “I could give you his phone number.”

Within days, Minkow talked with both Marsch and Marshall about Lennar.

In a legal deposition several months later, Minkow said he was told that “the bank goes under if the bank does not get paid the $7 million,” so he decided to help.

“I was just interested in my bank, you know, not closing,” he said. “I have friends there and they were my first bank and my first client (hosting an anti-fraud seminar). I just didn’t want them to close.”

The “all-out blitzkrieg approach” 

After reviewing Marsch’s two lawsuits against Lennar, Minkow warned that they were in “serious jeopardy.” In fact, within the next two years Marsch would lose one suit and suffer a dismissal of the other, although the dismissal has been reversed on appeal.

Minkow said that instead of going through a trial, the only way for Marsch to prevail would be to drive Lennar to an out-of-court settlement table through “an all-out blitzkrieg approach,” entailing a “full fury of attacks” designed to make the company understand that litigation was “no longer a viable business option.”

In an engagement letter on Nov. 30, 2009, Minkow proposed a multi-phased approach:

  * Set up a website to publicize “the depth, scope and cumulative effect of the apparent fraud apparently taking place at Lennar.”
  * Spread the attacks through on-line chat rooms and blogs as well as by contacting reporters in the Associated Press, Reuters, Bloomberg and other media sources.
  * Write a letter to the accounting firm handling Lennar’s books, demanding its resignation because it could no longer trust senior management.



Minkow said such steps should be enough to force Lennar around, since its directors would figure the negative publicity might have “a devastating impact on their stock price, borrowing power and ability to secure new joint venture partners.”

Minkow estimated the campaign would cost at least $1 million, but could go up to $2 million if the case went to trial.

Marsch insists he never authorized Minkow to publish any attack on Lennar, adding that he only wanted Minkow to track down the anonymous letter-writer. But over the next couple months, he paid Minkow $75,000 in installment payments, exactly as Minkow had specified in the engagement letter. And during that time, Minkow began preparing his blitzkrieg.

Right after meeting with Marsch, Minkow set about compiling a report titled “Top 10 red flags for fraud at Lennar Corp.” For several years, he had used the “top 10 red flags” title in his attacks on other companies as well, and some of the wording in the report — such as Minkow’s description of Lennar as “a financial crime in progress” — had been repeatedly used on other companies as well.

The bulk of the report consisted of accusations from Marsch’s soon-to-be dismissed lawsuits. Among other things, Minkow suggested that Lennar had a habit of breaching its business agreements and using accounting tricks to cheat its partners out of investments, based on charges that Marsch had aired in court. But he also intertwined those charges with other negative news about the company, ranging from its use of Chinese drywall materials to its controversial withdrawal from plans to build a cemetery in Orange County.

Minkow wove the disparate elements together to make Lennar seem like a giant Ponzi scheme that engaged in “RICO (racketeering) type of intentional bullying behavior.” Comparing Lennar and its executives to Bernard Madoff, Enron and disgraced Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham, Minkow wrote that he had “never encountered a more ruthless entity than Lennar Corp.”

In his guilty plea this year, Minkow said many of the charges in the report were unsubstantiated and that he had adopted Marsch’s “false assertions with reckless disregard for the truth.” In contrast, Marsch said that “while it is true that (Minkow) has apparently pleaded to publishing false statements, it is our view that what he did publish is and was true.”

The attack 

In early January 2009, Minkow was ready to go on the attack. In the early afternoon of Jan. 8, he emailed 1st Pacific executive Marshall that the report was almost ready to release, since Marsch had “gone through it line-by-line for accuracy.” (Again, Marsch denies having approved the report.) Four hours later, Marsch’s attorneys made a last-ditch attempt to settle their suit.

“Time is of the essence,” attorney Frederic Gordon wrote in a text message to Lennar’s attorney, Daniel Petrocelli. “If there is any hope of resolving our clients’ disputes it must be accomplished immediately.”

But it was 9 PM on the East Coast when Petrocelli got the message, far too late to bring to the company’s attention.

The next day, Minkow posted his report, including a YouTube monologue in which he verbally attacked Lennar. Since Minkow had previously built a track record of exposing fraud on Wall Street, investors took his charges seriously. By the end of the day, Lennar’s stock price plummeted from $11.57 to $9.15. The decline continued for nearly two weeks, so that by Jan. 22 the shares were selling for $6.55.

During that time, the company lost roughly $750 million in stock value. Part of that was because it was a terrible time on the stock market in general, particularly for construction companies. But the firm estimates that after weeding out industry tends on the market, it lost $485 million directly attributable to Minkow.

Lennar responded by issuing a detailed public rebuttal countering each of Minkow’s charges and then added Minkow’s name as a defendant in defamation suit it had already filed against Marsch. Minkow, who had survived such suits before because of free-speech grounds, did not seem concerned.

“When you get sued, you know you are right,” he told _The Wall Street Journal_.

And he didn’t let up. In February 2009, he posted an “analyst’s report” that there was a 72 percent likelihood that Lennar would go bankrupt within the next two years. Although that prophecy never came true, it allowed Minkow to short the company’s stock for a small profit.

In March 2009, Minkow stepped up the attack by falsely alleging that two of Lennar’s senior executives were diverting money to personal accounts in the Cayman Islands and Switzerland.

That allegation came even though Paul Palladino – a private investigator that Minkow had hired to work on the Lennar case – warned him that there was no evidence that either executive had money abroad. In a deposition later, Palladino said that he was “very upset, to put it mildly,” when Minkow aired the charges.

At the same time that Minkow was telling the world that Lennar was a fraudulent pyramid scheme that was about to go bankrupt, Marsch’s attorneys were suggesting that the company could give him stock shares in order to settle the case.

“Your client has found itself in the same position as did NuSkin, Herbalife and most recently USANA,” Gordon wrote, referring to three companies that Minkow previously attacked.

Sources close to those cases say the companies paid settlements ranging from $100,000 to $300,000 to stop Minkow’s attacks, although the companies have been barred from discussing the settlements.

Once a settlement was reached, Gordon wrote, Minkow issued statements of “public praise for the companies and acknowledgment of the appropriateness of the companies’ policies and procedures.” After that, he added, “the companies witnessed substantial recoveries” – an apparent reference to a rebound in their stock prices.

Gordon’s partner, Rhonda Holmes, urged Lennar not to let personal animosities get in the way of a settlement.

“You continue to cite one ‘reason’ after another for failing to come to the table,” she wrote to Lennar’s attorney, Petrocelli. “Each reason (has) nothing to do with any issue in the case - i.e., your client’s anger at and extreme dislike for Mr. Marsch – and (has) everything to do with pride and obstinance. Such personal bias and lack of objectivity are hardly the luxuries of public companies. My client remains focused on practicalities and rationality.”

Holmes and Gordon have not returned calls for comment on the case.

Sheep and goats 

In contrast to other companies Minkow attacked, Lennar pressed its defamation suit forward. And unlike in previous suits, Minkow did not do well in court. He got caught up in a variety of misstatements, even on relatively trivial matters. For instance, he once said he missed a court appointment because he had spent the night in an emergency room when he really spent the night at the Four Seasons hotel in Marina del Rey.

“That was a lie, correct?” Petrocelli asked Minkow during a court hearing.

“You know, I was sick, and I was going to the doctor or the hospital, you know….” Minkow stammered.

“Mr. Minkow, answer the question, yes or no, and then you can explain if you wish,” said Florida State Court Judge Gill Freeman.

“I believe, ma’am, that the answer is yes to his question…,” Minkow admitted. “I was wrong in explaining that I was in a hospital.”

Minkow’s mistruths did not endear him to the judge. As evidence mounted that Minkow had also hidden or destroyed evidence, Freeman took the unusual step of halting the case before it reached the jury, ruling that Minkow had lost by default. Freeman said Minkow had been so untruthful that holding a jury trial would be a disservice to the cause of justice.

In the meantime, things were going badly for Nicolas Marsch. One of his suits against Lennar was dismissed by a San Diego judge, in a decision that was reversed on appeal. In the other, a jury concluded that not only did Lennar owe Marsch no money, but instead Marsch owed Lennar $17 million. But Marsch says he is confident he will win on appeal.

Marsch has since filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization. With no money coming from the Lennar case, 1st Pacific Bank was forced to write off its $7 million loan. Since its loan losses exceeded legal guidelines, it was taken over by federal regulators in 2010 and sold to City National Bank.

In emails written early this year, Marsch tried to cheer Minkow into stepping up his fight.

“You have taken on one of the most dishonest, vicious corporations in America,” he wrote. “They will stop at nothing to slander, lie to the courts and spend unbelievable amounts of shareholder money to keep the truth from the public.”

Minkow responded that he was “grateful for your concern. You are a friend and I appreciate your support and your suggestions.”

Weeks after Minkow sent that email he began cooperating with federal authorities – including assisting in their investigation of Marsch’s role in the Lennar case – to pave the way for a plea bargain.

On March 13, two weeks before he resigned as minister and pleaded guilty to stock manipulation, Minkow gave one of his final sermons, focusing on his belief that Biblical prophecies forecast that the world is about to come to an end. But in the midst of his sermon, he went off-topic to share with his congregation his frustration of dealing with the “goats” lurking in the midst of his flock of “sheep.”

“We have people sitting in our pews who think they are really saved – or sheep – but they are really goats because they hear the Word and don’t do it,” he said. “I’m not testing anybody’s salvation. Far be it from my convicted-felon self to judge anybody. But the reason we (ministers) are frustrated when behavior doesn’t change is that we’re trying to put a sheep’s nature into a goat. You can’t do that. Stay away from people like that.”

* * *

"Johnny Depp's Infinitum Nihil and Disney Pick Up Two Movies," _The Hollywood Reporter_ , July 11, 2011  
 **  
** _The actor could potentially star in_ The Night Stalker _and a Paul Revere biopic._ **  
  
**Disney is doubling down on Johnny Depp, picking up two high-profile projects from the actor and his Infinitum Nihil shingle.  
  
First up is a feature film version of _The Night Stalker_ , the 1970s TV movie-turned-TV series that ran on Disney-owned ABC about Carl Kolchak, a reporter who investigates mysterious crimes that have a supernatural or sci-fi bent. Darren McGavin originally played the character and while the series only lasted a season it proved influential. The studio is out to writers.  
  
Also on tap is a telling of the historical story of the American Revolution hero Paul Revere and his 1775 midnight ride to warn the colonists of a British Invasion. Lee and Janet Batchler, who wrote _Batman Forever_ , are writing the screenplay.  
  
Each of the projects is a potential Depp starring vehicle. Depp is producing with his Infinitum partner (and sister) Christine Dembrowski. Springbok Productions, who helped provide a cash infusion for Infinitum and some of Depp's other personal ventures last year, will also help finance the films.  
  
The move keeps Disney in business with Depp, whose turns in the _Pirates of the Caribbean_ franchise over three films from 2003 to 2007 has grossed billions of dollars, and he took the role of _Peter Pan_ author J.M. Barrie in the Touchstone Pictures film _Finding Neverland_. And while his shingle is based at Warner Bros., Springbok and Fox's _Hussein_ is his next project.

* * *

"Springbok Creating Trio of Slavery-Related Projects," by Cynthia Littleton, _Variety_ , August 20, 2011  
  
Springbok Productions are no strangers to making big, ambitious projects, and there certainly is no exception with the announcement that they will be releasing three films that all have some relation with the topic of American slavery in the antebellum South. Though very different in tone from each other, they all have that one linking element in common.  
  
First off, after having finished production on the film _War Horse_ for Christmas, Springbok and Steven Spielberg will soon begin production on the long-announced _Lincoln_ for release by DreamWorks Pictures via Disney's Touchstone Pictures in North America and 20th Century Fox internationally the following holiday season. Despite the title, the film, based on Doris Kearns Goodwin's bestseller _Team of Rivals_ , is not a chronicle of his entire life, but instead focuses on the effort to get Congress to pass the 13th Amendment in January 1865, while the war was still officially on and to ensure that slavery would be extinguished. Daniel Day-Lewis will play the title role, while Sally Field will portray Mary Todd Lincoln. The movie also features Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Robert Lincoln, David Strathairn as William Seward, Tommy Lee Jones as Thaddeus Stevens, Hal Holbrook as Francis Preston Blair, James Spader as Republican operative William N. Bilbo, and Jackie Earle Haley as Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens.  
  
At the same time and release point, Springbok and Fox will release Quentin Tarantino's next project, _Django Unchained_ , a film in which a former slave becomes a bounty hunter to search for and free his wife, shot in the vein of a spaghetti western. Jamie Foxx has been signed on to play the titular role, with Christoph Waltz, who broke out to receptive audiences as Hans Landa in Tarantino's last film _Inglourious Basterds_ , as his foil, Dr. King Schultz. Leonardo DiCaprio has been confirmed as the movie's antagonist, the slave owner Calvin Candie, master of "Candyland," his ode to subjugation, with Tarantino regular Samuel L. Jackson as his right-hand man, a house slave named Stephen. Don Johnson, Bruce Dern and Jonah Hill have also been confirmed to have roles in the movie, though Hill's role is expected to be short, since he and DiCaprio are also working together on another Springbok project, Martin Scorsese's _The Wolf of Wall Street_ , expected in 2013.  
  
Lastly, Springbok, along with Regency Enterprises and Brad Pitt's production company Plan B Entertainment, have announced that they are working together on _12 Years a Slave_ , based on the narrative by Solomon Northup, a free man from upstate New York who was mistaken for a runaway slave and made to toil at plantations down south. British director Steve McQueen will helm the project, with a script by John Ridley. Chiewetel Ejiofor will star as Solomon, while Michael Fassbender will star as Edwin Epps, the cruel, vindictive slave owner who kept him the longest. Pitt will star in a brief supporting role, as will Paul Giamatti, Alfre Woodard and Paul Dano. The film will be released sometime in 2013, with Fox Searchlight Pictures distributing it in North America, Entertainment One in the UK and Ireland, Icon Productions/Icon Film Distribution in Australia, and Lionsgate's Summit Entertainment elsewhere.

* * *

"GE Completes Sale of NBCUniversal, PolyGram Name to be Revived," _The Hollywood Reporter_ , August 29, 2011  
  
General Electric has finished off its sales of its ownership stake in the NBCUniversal conglomerate, finding additional partners to buy stakes to supplement cable giant Comcast's 35 percent stake. The additional buyers are Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group of Japan, with a 10 percent stake, American real estate holding company Colony Capital (already creator of a holding company for the Miramax Pictures name) holds 7.5 percent, chemical conglomerate DuPont has taken on a 6.5 percent share, the Qatar Investment Authority (also part of the Miramax deal) holds 8 percent, Panasonic (ironically, a former owner of the whole of the conglomerate) reunites with 8 percent of the group, Ronald Perelman's MacAndrews & Forbes Incorporated has purchased 5 percent, Nomura Holdings has invested 10 percent, and French film production company StudioCanal has the remaining 10 percent.  
  
In light of this recent transaction, this diverse group of owners will simplify matters by creating a new parent company to pool their control of NBCUniversal to go as the new byline to appear on the logo screens. Henceforth, starting in 2012, to mark Universal Pictures' 100th anniversary, the group shall be referred to as "A PolyGram Company." This revives a very familiar and omnipresent name from decades past. Up through 1998, PolyGram was a conglomerate that had stakes in music, film and television production. It owned many different record labels, most notably Mercury Records, Interscope Records and Polydor Records, owned film production group Interscope Communications as well as putting out films through their PolyGram Filmed Entertainment shingle, and likewise with television. Then, NBCUniversal's parent company, Seagram, bought PolyGram and merged it all together, especially to form the Universal Music Group, which is still fully owned by NBCUniversal's former parent company Vivendi. However, the legal name of the conglomerate will remain NBCUniversal.  
  
GE had been looking to reduce its exposure due to the lingering effects of the Great Recession and how their ownership stake of NBCUniversal was leading to unexpected hiccups from their bank credit lines. It had hoped to sell a controlling stake to Comcast before the SEC and FCC put the brakes on that. Comcast, with its 35 percent stake, is still the largest owner. They also ended up fully purchasing DreamWorks Animation, which was spun off from DreamWorks Pictures in 2004 by Jeffrey Katzenberg to raise badly needed capital.

* * *

Jennifer Todd interview on _Entertainment Tonight_ , September 15, 2011

Q: Does all the rush of success ever make you feel something like, "it's good to be the king?"  
A: Not seriously, and never more than a few seconds. We don't consider ourselves to be that big, no one can possibly be bigger than the major studios. We're basically nothing more than an extension of them, truly. But even that doesn't faze us that much. You can't simply rest on your laurels, and you have to stay hungry to keep doing quality work. We're always looking ahead, never backwards.  
Q: You're basically the one who runs the show at Springbok, you, along with the other big executives, but do the founders put in their hours as well?  
A: Neither Kurt nor Charlize have talent for administration, and they knew that going in. Especially since he's always out working on music and she has lots of non-Springbok films on the table that she's happy to appear in. But they keep tabs on all of our projects, even if it's from a distance, over a speakerphone, because they also are essentially the creative heart and soul of the company. We get more than 2000 scripts and treatments a year sent to us, and we're very picky about what we choose. Simply put, if any one of us doesn't like the idea at all, not just a matter of modifying, but that the thing doesn't appeal to the company, doesn't work, can't be done or whatever, then we walk away from it. We don't put out any product that we're not passionate about.  
Q: I know that earlier this year, you all were quite passionate about working with Arnold Schwarzenegger in _Cry Macho_ , then that was off the table. Tell us about that.  
A: Al Ruddy had the rights to this idea for several decades, and he'd been holding it for a while. He then specifically started holding it with Arnold in mind, and Arnold loved it. We also thought it was a terrific idea, especially something to show that Arnold could be more dramatic than he's given credit for.  
Q: How far along was pre-production before Arnold pulled out?  
A: The script and casting was complete. Al, because he didn't want to lose control, went to secure independent financing, and he found it. Costumes and scenic design were almost complete. We were set to begin filming by August 24. Basically, we had a muscle car with a full tank of high-octane gas ready to roll. Then the dam broke.  
Q: Were you disappointed with that?  
A: Somewhat, but not overly so. We fully understood that Arnold needed time to sort things out with his family, especially to make sure that the children are going to be fine.  
Q: Do you feel that _Cry Macho_ can be picked up again, even with a different star?  
A: Sadly, no. This project is too attached to Arnold, it only got financing and was on the fast track because of his involvement. Everyone in Hollywood is still willing to work with him, on anything but this, because of how close the story is to home. And even if another star could be found and supported, it would only remind people too much about it. Al was forced to let the option expire.  
Q: Will Springbok ever bring a project for Arnold to work on?  
A: Naturally. He's such a towering talent that it would be profoundly stupid not to hook up with. We already sold him on the idea of a sequel/reboot to _Last Action Hero_ , and we're working to get it to come together.

* * *

"Steven Tyler, Kurt Cobain, Charlize Theron, Frances Bean Cobain Strike a Pose for Andrew Charles," by Lisa Lockwood, WWD, October 14, 2011

Anyone swinging by Macy’s Herald Square tonight is likely to see Steven Tyler, the charismatic frontman of Aerosmith, Nirvana frontman and entertainment mogul Kurt Cobain, his eldest daughter Frances Bean Cobain, and his wife, actress Charlize Theron posing in the windows.

The four, who are the face of a new rocker-chic sportswear line Andrew Charles, will appear with Tyler's daughters Chelsea and Mia in the windows to promote the women’s and men’s collection, which is exclusive to Macy’s. Later, some 300 customers who made a $100 Andrew Charles purchase on Thursday and received a backstage pass, will have the chance to meet the group and have their photograph taken with them.

Known for his wildly colorful on-stage attire — which over the years has run the gamut from leopard print lace-ups and hip huggers to bold printed silk shirts, layered jewelry, leather jackets and long scarves on himself and his microphone stands — Tyler is clearly excited about collaborating with Andy Hilfiger and the Cobain-Theron family on the Andrew Charles sportswear collection. The line, which is available in 100 Impulse departments at Macy’s, is being developed by Music Entertainment Sports Holdings, a division of LF USA in partnership with Star Branding. Tyler will also do a solo extension of the brand, a line of scarves entitled Rock Scarf.

* * *

"Are Plans Crashing Down Around Icon UK?," by Diana Lodderhouse and Adam Dawtrey, _Variety_ , October 29, 2011  
  
 _Did Mel Gibson doom his own company?_  
  
Two years after Len Blavatnik’s Access Industries bought Icon’s UK distribution and foreign sales operations from founders Mel Gibson and Bruce Davey, with big plans to expand Icon around the world, all signs seem to indicate that Access’s excitement with the film biz is cooling.  
  
The grand plans for Icon’s global expansion have long been abandoned, while a strategic alliance announced a year ago with New Line Cinema has come to nothing.  
  
Now Blighty’s film biz is abuzz with reports that Access is shopping Icon’s UK library to potential buyers, following the distrib’s recent weak performance.  
  
The possible sale of that library, which includes titles such as _Drive_ , _A Single Man_ and _Precious_ , would leave Icon to simply focus on the foreign sales business. However, the company is also struggling to attract new projects for its international arm, with Access providing only limited support.  
  
Perhaps it’s that the U.S.-based industrial group has bigger fish to fry. The company acquired Warner Music in May for $3.3 billion, and is now the favorite to snap up EMI’s recorded music arm, which has been put on the block by Citigroup. Icon is a small concern by comparison, and Access seems unwilling to invest more cash or management time in growing the business.  
  
Access and Icon refuse to comment. But one insider confirms Access is open to offers for its UK distribution arm: “It’s like one of those things you have that doesn’t make a huge difference to you, and you want to sell but only if the price is right.”  
  
Icon UK was originally a full part of the Icon Group, which was founded in 1989 by Gibson, seeking to expand beyond acting, and Davey, formerly his chartered accountant turned personal manager during his early career in Australia. Besides the UK group it spun off (which also includes the foreign rights to 220 films from the Majestic Films and Television library), the group still consists of Icon Productions, based out in Santa Monica for film and television production, Icon Film Distribution in Australia, and its work as an exhibition company by owning the Dendy Cinemas chain in Australia.  
  
During Icon's first two decades, it grew quite considerably in stature, with the help of massively successful films such as _Hamlet_ , _Braveheart_ , _Immortal Beloved_ , _What Women Want_ , _Payback_ , _We Were Soldiers_ and _The Passion of the Christ_. Icon bought a library of 250 films, composed of Majestic and the foreign rights to Kings Road Entertainment. Icon also then began dabbling in television projects with multiple premieres in 2004, such as the CBS/Aaron Spelling drama _Clubhouse_ featuring Christopher Lloyd, the UPN legal drama _Kevin Hill_ , and the ABC sitcom _Complete Savages_. All except the last were poorly reviewed, and all of them suffered from abysmal marketing and ratings, so none of them lasted past season one. Even so, there were still big plans. Icon landed a massive three-picture deal with Springbok Productions, set to begin with Gibson's 2006 film _Apocalypto_ , and Springbok also circled with interest in Icon's next TV project, an ABC miniseries based on the life of Flory Van Beek, a Dutch Jew who survived the Holocaust.  
  
Then the dam broke. Gibson was arrested on a DUI charge, in which he went on a tirade containing anti-Semitic remarks and attacking Springbok and its founders. Gibson went to rehab, but the damage was done. Springbok cancelled the deal, though did go forward with the release of _Apocalypto_ , though its success was definitely blunted by the scandal. The ABC miniseries was called off, as well as shelving Icon's TV arm. Icon suddenly found itself without traction or a noticeable imprint in North America, with ironically, Springbok's owned exhibition properties like Muvico and Cobb Theatres playing their product without question. Films like the Pierce Brosnan/Liam Neeson western _Seraphim Falls_ vanished without a trace, and their films worldwide suffered. To stay afloat, Icon sold the UK group and spun it off, and consolidated the focus on film distribution, instead of production, especially including the Aussie distributor Gibson and Davey still owned.  
  
Icon’s UK arm looks set for its worst year at the box office since 2006. Compared to Icon Australia, it has always been second-fiddle, but it has only gotten worse, especially after Gibson's latest domestic violence scandal. With a gross of £7.4 million ($11.8 million) so far, the company will be lucky to make half of its 2010 and 2009 box office takings, which sat at $26.3 million and $26.8 million, respectively. Films such as the claymation production _Mary and Max_ and the time-loop thriller _Triangle_ have done relatively well, but the others on the slates have struggled to meet those numbers.  
  
While Icon UK’s 2010 slate was peppered with some moderately successful releases, including Gibson's comeback attempt _Edge of Darkness_ ($5.9 million) and _A Single Man_ ($5.1 million) there were a slew of misses as well, including Gurinder Chadha’s _It’s a Wonderful Afterlife_ ($1.5 million) and _The Box_ , ($1.9 million).  
  
So far in 2011, only two pics have passed the £1 million ($1.5 million) mark: _Drive_ ($4.1 million and counting) and _West Is West_ ($4.3 million).  
  
Some rival distribs even say they were approached by Access as long as six months ago to assess the value of the UK library.  
  
Two years ago, under the direction of former PolyGram and UIP topper Stewart Till, the intention was to set up Icon as an international distribution network that could rival the likes of other major indies in the European market and further afield. This was certainly intended to not only improve Icon UK, but even have an effect on the Icon assets still owned by Gibson and Davey, and possibly lead to a reunion down the line.  
  
The backing of Blavatnik, a Russian-American billionaire, coupled with Till’s expertise signaled what seemed to be a big future for the company.  
  
Till kicked the tires of several distribs in Italy, Spain, France and Germany, but could not find suitable acquisitions at a realistic price. At the same time, a series of UK theatrical failings cooled the enthusiasm of Access for further expansion in the distribution business.  
  
A year ago, Access told Till to retreat back to Blighty and focus on fixing the UK operations and building up the foreign sales arm.  
  
However, this was not what Till, an advocate of the multiterritory distribution philosophy, wanted. So he moved from CEO to a part-time role as chairman, while Hugo Grumbar and Ian Dawson became joint managing directors, with Grumbar handling international sales and Dawson the UK operation.  
  
In January, Icon laid off 15% of its staff. In an effort to cut costs, certain pivotal roles were merged including head of home entertainment and head of marketing.  
  
Rumors were rife that Grumbar and Dawson were given a year to show results or the company would be shut down.  
  
Since then, Icon’s international sales operation has handled pics such as _Coriolanus_ , which was sold to Disney/Touchstone Pictures in Berlin, Sundance hit _Project Nim_ and the yet-to-be released Gibson pic _Get the Gringo_.  
  
At Cannes, Icon launched presales of the $20 million spoof _The Biggest Movie of All Time 3D_ , the latest outing from reviled parody filmmakers Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer, which was supposed to start shooting in November. It lined up a healthy $12 million in commitments from distribs, but with Access unwilling to cover the gap in a timely fashion, Icon was unable to close the financing on schedule, and the producers have been forced to postponed production while Icon continues its efforts to piece together the budget.  
  
Last year, before the American Film Market, the separate sides of Icon all came together and announced it was launching a new film financing alliance with New Line Cinema. Under the deal, Icon and New Line would jointly identify projects in the $5 million-$20 million range, which Icon would bankroll and New Line would distribute in selected territories. Both companies announced that the fund could reach $100 million over its initial two-year period. New Line founder Robert Shaye, in particular, trumpeted the deal as "the best I have ever made. This is best for Icon, best for New Line, best for Time Warner, and best for the ticket-buying audiences."  
  
One year later, however, and the relationship has borne no fruit. One insider suggests that after the splashy announcement, Icon never ended up signing the deal, after its execs realized that the terms were stacked against the company.  
  
Indeed, for the past year, Icon seems to have spent more time pulling out of deals than consummating them. Last week, Icon went into arbitration with River Road Entertainment, the producers of Terrence Malick’s _The Tree of Life_ , after cancelling a plan in April to distribute the pic in Blighty.  
  
The UK distribution company’s most significant acquisition this year has been the low-budget horror pic _You’re Next_ , which Icon pre-bought for a low-six figure sum from HanWay Films at Cannes. The horror-thriller was one of the buzz titles at Toronto this year, selling to more than 30 territories; Lionsgate snapped up U.S. rights in a low seven-figure deal. But Icon’s UK release will follow the U.S. release, which isn’t skedded until next year.  
  
“It’s a crowded landscape here in the UK,” says one source. “And Access don’t seem to be giving Icon the backing and support they need to make themselves a formidable player. Perhaps it’s a question of experience and infrastructure, but rumors are rife and people are hesitant to give them films because of that.”  
  
At least some seem to put the blame solely on the famed founder who no longer has any say in the UK operation. "Icon as a whole has been fucked over all because of Mel," another source said. "Prior to the DUI, Icon was moving along quite nicely. We were big in movies everywhere, had the potential to be big in TV, and the company was still together. We had our library to keep bringing in the funds. The Springbok deal was going to make us bigger still. And all of that is ruined because Mel couldn't stay out of the fucking bottle. Icon UK may not belong to us anymore, but that's because of that scandal. What affects them affects us, and it's the fucking worst. I guarantee you that the history of Icon will be written and Mel will be the one who ruined everything."  
  
Members of Gibson and Davey's Icon Group refuse to comment officially on the matter, or to dignify this anonymous source's comments.

* * *

"Miramax Revives Movie-Backed Securitization," Reuters, November 4, 2011

Global capital markets may resemble a horror movie of late, but that has not stopped film studio Miramax from resurrecting a film-backed securitization technique.

The studio, founded by brothers Bob and Harvey Weinstein in 1979, is launching the first-ever US term securitization of a standalone film library next week, for about $550 million, to refinance its outstanding debt.

The deal will also securitize all cashflow from existing contracts associated with the licensing of those films. That includes cashflows from the movies’ different distribution channels (television, digital, and DVD/BluRay), and all future sales associated with the unsold inventory related to the library — in other words, all cashflows associated with their future licensing and distribution.

The library consists of well known existing films that were quite popular during their run, including _Pulp Fiction_ , _Good Will Hunting_ , _Reservoir Dogs_ , and _Chasing Amy_.

Miramax was acquired by Disney in 1993, but 80 percent of it was spun off when Disney acquired the likes of Pixar and Lucasfilm. The Weinsteins were then forced out of the company when Harvey was exposed for sexual misconduct. Disney rebought the company in full, then embedded it with its Touchstone Pictures division. Disney then chose to spin off the name to a holding company in 2010 while holding onto the old library, but did allow the holding company access to cash flow from the library Therefore, while like most film libraries, it is technically embedded in a major studio, this one is being treated as a standalone entity.

Barclays Capital, the structurer and arranger, is roadshowing the 144A deal across the US starting on Monday, according to market sources.

A NEW SPIN   
Film-related securitization is certainly not a new concept, but previous US deals, including more recent privately placed conduit financings, have not looked quite like this.

Prior uses of structured finance technology in the film space have involved the future production of new films. In the past, cash flows would rely on the success or failure of either movies that were just released, or movies that were in queue to be produced — quite a gamble for investors if a film didn’t do well at the box office.

The most recent film-backed securitization to be completed was a $975 million ABS for Village Roadshow Films, which closed in August 2010. However, that deal was more of a hybrid, as it financed the projected cash flows from some existing films, some that were recently out of the box office, and some that are yet to be made.

A seminal $1 billion deal from DreamWorks in 2002 kicked off this film financing trend in the US. That transaction relied on movies that were already made, but they were brand new.

About two months after the movie release date, the financing would advance to investors against future film receipts and distribution rights, which were largely based on how much the movie made in the original box office.

After the DreamWorks deal, the technology started to be used to finance the production of new movies — so-called “slate” financings.

Many of these used monoline wraps from Ambac or MBIA, so when the Triple A ratings on those companies disappeared in 2007 and 2008, the slate financings went south pretty quickly.

For example, a $465 million film-backed ABS for Marvel Studios, launched in September 2005, titled MVL Film Finance, was downgraded from AAA to BAA3 by Moody’s in early 2009. The ratings were subsequently withdrawn, right before Marvel was purchased by Disney.

The AAA class of a similar deal, Relativity Media Holdings I LLC 2007-1, was downgraded several times, and was lowered to BA2 by Moody’s this past June; the ratings were then withdrawn “for business reasons”, the rating agency said in a press release. The $375 million deal was originally created to acquire an interest in future films to be produced by Sony Pictures Entertainment.

From a credit perspective, the Miramax transaction seems a lot safer: all of the movies have already been made and were quite successful. Moreover, the contracts to license the movies via various distribution channels for specific time periods are already in place, even if technically controlled by Disney. These time periods are known as availabilities, or “avails”, within the film finance industry.

Moreover, monoline wraps for ABS do not exist anymore, so like other recent so-called operating-asset securitizations, the top grade on the Miramax deal will be in the low investment-grade range, typically either Triple B or Single A.

The deal uses the same construct as the famed “Bowie bonds” from 1997, which securitized future royalties for the legendary rock artist David Bowie.

While new in the US, the Miramax film-library offering may have a predecessor in Europe: In March 1998, Italian media group Cecchi Gori priced a 475 billion lira film-library ABS for a catalog of 1200 Italian films.

However, unlike Miramax, the Cecchi Gorri transaction wasn’t a pure library deal; it was a multi-picture distribution financing, which included some library movies but some new films as well.

Additionally, the Italian deal was launched into a motion picture industry that was materially different than the one that exists today - i.e., before the advent of digital technology and Blockbuster Entertainment.

* * *

"NBC Buys _Hannibal_ Series From Bryan Fuller, Springbok & Gaumont International Television," by Nellie Andreeva, _Deadline Hollywood_ , November 7, 2011  
  
In its first U.S. sale, recently launched L.A.-based indie studio Gaumont International Television has set up hourlong drama _Hannibal_ at NBC. Written and executive produced by Bryan Fuller and executive produced by Martha De Laurentiis, the project, based on the iconic literary and film character Hannibal Lecter, was bought by NBC preemptively, especially after Springbok Productions announced its interest in the project and joined GIT in helping with the sale and becoming a producer on the series. It marks a reunion between the network and GIT CEO Katie O’Connell, who previously served as NBC head of drama. Fuller is developing a script against a 13-episode commitment, meaning that the project won’t go through a pilot stage but straight to series if NBC brass like the script. The network has a short window after receiving Fuller’s script to pick it up. In a model similar to that for NBC’s midseason drama series _The Firm_ , GIT, the U.S. arm of French film studio Gaumont (best known for the early filmography of director Luc Besson before he broke with the studio to form his own company, Europacorp), will fund the potential series by a mix of a U.S network license fee and international sales. The project was taken to MIPCOM last month, and a number of international deals are already in the works.  
  
I hear that Fuller, a well-known foodie as evidenced by his previous series _Pushing Daisies_ , loved the dark, sick side of Hannibal, who tends to feast on his victims. (Who can forget Anthony Hopkins delivering the line: “I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti” from _The Silence of the Lambs_?) De Laurentiis — who has a preexisting association with Hannibal Lecter having secured the rights to all projects following _Lambs_ and has, to date, produced the films _Hannibal_ , _Red Dragon_ and _Hannibal Rising_ — and CAA brought the rights to GIT, which opened its doors at the beginning of September. O’Connell brought in Springbok, who had been looking to do something with the character to "restore his luster", as well as Fuller, with whom she had had a long relationship going back to the time she was at NBC and WME-repped Fuller worked on the network’s drama _Heroes_. (O’Connell also bid on Fuller’s _Pushing Daisies_ , which ultimately went to ABC.)

* * *

"Giladi Tapped as Icon UK CEO," by Diana Lodderhouse, _Variety_ , November 23, 2011  
  
Aviv Giladi has been tapped as CEO of Access Industries’ Icon UK Group.  
  
The appointment, which is effective immediately, will see Giladi oversee Icon UK’s entire operations, including its Brit distribution arm, Icon Film Distribution, Icon Home Entertainment, international sales arm Icon Entertainment Intl. and London-based Majestic Films and Television. All of this was spun off from the larger Icon Group, founded in 1989 by Mel Gibson and Bruce Davey, which still contains the Santa Monica-based Icon Productions (which is still active, despite not having a presence in films released in North America) and an Australian film distribution group, also named Icon Film Distribution, which also owns the Dendy Cinemas chain Down Under.  
  
Giladi’s appointment is expected to herald Icon’s shift toward a more production-focused business, which will aim to finance projects sitting around the $15 million to $20 million mark.  
  
Sources indicate that the group is currently in talks to back Paul Greengrass’ upcoming project _Memphis_ , about the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, which Universal Pictures dropped earlier this year.  
  
Giladi is currently chairman of Israeli media group RGE Group, which specializes in a variety of content and production activities, and produces and operates TV channels in Israel. He controls 33% of the company, alongside Access Industries’ Russian billionaire owner Len Blavatnik , who also has a 33% stake in RGE.  
  
Giladi also sits on the board of Ealing Studios, in which he serves as non-executive director.  
  
The appointment comes in the light of a series of changes expected to unfold over the upcoming months with Icon UK’s strained business.  
  
In October, _Variety_ reported that Blighty’s film biz had been abuzz with reports that Access, which bought Icon’s UK operations two years ago, was shopping the company’s UK library to potential buyers following the distrib’s recent weak performance in the market ( _Weekly Variety_ , Oct. 29).  
  
It is believed that Giladi has been one of the key figures, along with Access’ European Counsel Thomas Harding, behind managing the potential sale of Icon’s UK library to buyers.  
  
As recently as a few weeks ago, this UK library was still being shopped to buyers with Access showing interest in selling this fraction of the biz if the price was right.  
  
While Giladi’s appointment is positive in a sense that it seems there is movement and direction happening within the group, it is still unclear what will happen to the group’s Brit distrib arm and equally unclear as to what will happen to the positions of joint managing directors Hugo Grumbar and Ian Dawson.  
  
Sources indicate that, so far, no one has yet ankled the company, but as is typical when gears shift within a company, there may be casualties.  
  
Further changes are expected to be announced within the company soon.  
  
Blavatnik’s Access Industries purchased Icon UK Group from Gibson and Davey in November 2009 and placed former PolyGram and UIP topper Stewart Till at the helm.  
  
Till’s intention to set up Icon as an international distribution network was thwarted when he could not find suitable acquisitions in Italy, Spain, France and Germany at a realistic price.  
  
In November 2010, Till sidestepped to chairman of Icon, and Grumbar and Dawson stepped up to the plate managing the international sales division and UK operation respectively.

* * *

"Icon UK to Close Distribution Arm," by Diana Lodderhouse and Adam Dawtrey, _Variety_ , November 28, 2011  
  
After months of speculation, Icon UK Group is shuttering its UK distribution arm with Lionsgate UK believed to be in negotiations to buy its library and handle future releases of acquired titles in the territory.  
  
The news comes after Len Blavatnik’s Access Industries, which purchased Icon UK Group in November 2009, tapped Aviv Giladi as CEO of the company last week in a move expected to herald a shift toward a more production-based business.  
  
According to sources, the remaining 32 employees at the London-based company were told last week that roughly 20 would be axed. Icon UK Group is going through a consultation phase to decide which positions to chop.  
  
Additionally, sources said that Lionsgate is expected to purchase the company’s UK library, which includes _Drive_ , _A Single Man_ , and _Precious_.  
  
Acquisitions that have yet to be distributed in Blighty include low-budget horror _You’re Next_ , which Icon pre-bought for low six-figures from HanWay Films at Cannes.  
  
Coincidentally, Lionsgate picked up U.S. rights for the pic following its premiere at Toronto.  
  
For the time being, sources say that the foreign sales arm, headed by Hugo Grumbar, will remain intact but long-term plans are to close that part of the business and focus on production and investment in commercial pics.  
  
This isn’t the first time this year that Icon has axed jobs: In January, Icon laid off 15% of its staffers as part of cost cuts due to the increased pressures facing its UK biz. At the time, rumors were circulating that Access had given Grumbar and Ian Dawson, managing director of the UK arm, a year to show results or the company would be shut.  
  
In October, _Variety_ revealed that Access had been shopping Icon’s UK library to potential buyers following the distrib’s weak performance.  
  
Giladi, who is chairman of Israeli media company RGE Group and a non-executive director on the board of Ealing Studios, is believed to be one of the figures managing the potential sale of Icon’s UK library.  
  
Icon refused to comment at the time of going to press while Lionsgate was unavailable for comment.

* * *

"Icon UK Confirms Lionsgate Pact," by Nancy Tartaglione, _Deadline Hollywood_ , November 29, 2011  
  
Icon UK today announced that the company would head in a “new strategic direction” by focusing on acquiring and producing films while forming a distribution partnership with Lionsgate. A hook-up with Lionsgate had been expected, but this is the first time the move has been confirmed. The deal is a multi-year pact and will see Lionsgate distribute and release certain of Icon’s film rights in the UK. Icon, meanwhile, is itching to ramp up production. According to a statement, Icon UK’s international sales division will sharpen its focus on acquiring new projects by seeking out production deals to source original content, while retaining its core business off-selling product to international distributors. Aviv Giladi, who was named CEO of Icon UK last week, said: “I’m hugely excited about the prospect of engaging with directors and producers to source and create the most compelling independent movies possible. Content creation is central to my career, and I invite the world’s film talent to come and talk to us at Icon about projects we can partner with.”

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"Lionsgate UK To Distribute Icon Titles, But No News Of Library Deal," by Nancy Tartaglione, _Deadline Hollywood_ , November 30, 2011  
  
Lionsgate UK today confirmed its new distribution pact with Icon UK, saying it will handle the release of all of the latter’s titles moving forward. The deal is for rights to all films to come, but, for the moment at least, the Icon library is not included. Speculation has been that Lionsgate would take over the library, which includes _Precious_ , _Man On Wire, A Single Man_ , _Paranormal Activity_ and others. Lionsgate UK already handles the home entertainment rights for the Nu Image library and recently entered a multi-year licensing deal with Blockbuster Entertainment ahead of the streaming service’s 2012 UK launch. Icon’s releases in 2011 have included Jodie Foster’s _The Beaver_ and Nicolas Winding Refn’s _Drive_. Lionsgate will now handle the release of Winding Refn’s next picture, _Only God Forgives,_ along with Walter Salles’ _On The Road_ , Adam Wingard’s _You’re Next_ and the very English _Postman Pat: The Movie_.  
  
Icon CEO Aviv Giladi said, “This move will further assert our position in the competitive UK marketplace.” Lionsgate COO Guy Avshalom said, “We are delighted to be working with Aviv and his team at Icon and including a variety of titles into our expanding theatrical slate.”

* * *

"Springbok Lands Development Deal for Paul Greengrass," by Nancy Tartaglione, _Deadline Hollywood_ , December 12, 2011  
  
Springbok Productions officially announced that it has given a development deal to English director Paul Greengrass. Best known as the director taking the reins from Doug Liman ( _Swingers_ , _Go_ ) to continue the Jason Bourne film series and for his harrowing 2006 feature _United 93_ , Greengrass is already considered one of the most influential filmmakers in history, an auteur with an ease fitting into any genre.  
  
The deal, consisting of five pictures, takes effect after Greengrass finishes his next project, a film with Sony and Trigger Street Productions about the 2009 _Maersk Alabama_ hijacking and tense rescue by Navy SEALS of Captain Richard Phillips, featuring Tom Hanks, and set for release in October 2013. Already, Greengrass and Springbok have a number of potential projects to consider. These include Greengrass' proposed film about the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. entitled _Memphis_ (which was supposed to be his next film until Universal pulled out), a Karen Carpenter biopic film, work on a rumored Freddie Mercury biopic that currently is supposed to feature Sacha Baron Cohen in the role, a Meat Loaf biopic, a film about the Trail of Tears, a potential anime adaptation, and Greengrass being assigned to either of the two projects Johnny Depp's Infinitum Nihil shingle and Disney have picked up to produce shortly. Details remain quite sketchy at the moment, but more will become available after Greengrass has finished his current production.

* * *

"Mel Brooks and Springbok _Saddle_ Up for New Musical Premiere," Broadway.com, December 24, 2011  
  
In April, comedy legend Mel Brooks will debut his third stage musical, _Blazing Saddles_ , the buzz about which has been quite massive. And deservedly so. The new Broadway musical, based on the 1974 Western spoof that is considered to be Brooks' masterpiece, is not only the third musical he has done after _The Producers_ and _Young Frankenstein_ , but also his second go-round in launching a show with the stage theatricals division of Springbok Productions. They worked together to bring _Young Frankenstein_ to the Great White Way in 2007, definitely hoping to repeat the success of Brooks' inaugural stage delight. Sure, the show received extremely mixed reviews and closed after only two years, compared to the unparalleled six-year success that _The Producers_ had, but there are no regrets among the group.  
  
"Mel is an absolute delight and a joy to work with," Springbok theatre head Leonard Soloway asserts. "When he's around you, everyone steps up their A-game and works their asses off. We knew going in that people were going to compare _Young Frankenstein_ to _The Producers_ and that it was never going to win that contest, but we did it because we wanted to and we were passionate about it. We had a great time doing that show, as did the actors and crew, and we were definitely wanting the good times to continue. Mel had the vision of doing _Blazing Saddles_ as a musical in that time, and we supported it from day one. And it's going to pay off considerably."  
  
Springbok and Brooks first came into contact when the former stepped up to the plate to help finance the 2005 film adaptation of _The Producers_ , bringing back original Broadway cast members Nathan Lane, Matthew Broderick, Gary Beach and Roger Bart, with the additions of Uma Thurman and Will Ferrell. Thanks to Springbok's help with the budget and the marketing, the film was quite successful, even if not nearly to the extent the stage show was when it opened in 2001. In return, Springbok got the rights to tackle North American regional productions of the stage version, as well as the 90-minute Vegas spectacular that originally debuted with David Hasselhoff in the cast (which he was doing at the time that the infamous video of him drunkenly struggling to eat a cheeseburger on the floor was made). This made Springbok want to collaborate fully with Brooks on his next project, all of which leads us to now.  
  
Like the first two musicals, _Blazing Saddles_ boasts music and lyrics solely by Brooks, a book co-penned by Brooks and _Annie_ librettist Thomas Meehan, orchestrations by Doug Besterman, and choreography and direction by Susan Stroman. Springbok is joined as producers of this project by _Producers_ alumni Rocco Landesman, concert promoters Robert F.X. Sillerman and Michael Cohl, and the Frankel-Baruch-Viertel-Routh Group, and additional producer East of Doheny. "The old gang is back together," Stroman states, "and nothing can drive us apart." The main cast features notable regional Shakespeare actor Daveed Diggs as Sheriff Bart, and Mandy Gonzalez, who first came to prominence as the female lead in Springbok and Jim Steinman's _Dance of the Vampires_ and lately was in the original Broadway cast of Lin-Manuel Miranda's _In the Heights_ , will play the role of Lili von Shtupp. "Ever since _Vampires_ , Mandy has risen to incredible heights," fellow Springbok theatricals executive Anita Waxman muses. "She's a true diva with a powerful voice to match, and she was quite happy to come aboard." Waxman will neither confirm nor deny rumors that Springbok has given Miranda a development deal for his followup to _Heights_.  
  
"Mel is an absolute machine of inspiration," Soloway states. "The book and the songs just poured out of him. When we did an initial staged reading back in March, the laughs couldn't stop. We know we've got a definite winner here." Unlike either of Brooks' other musicals, _Saddles_ will not have an out-of-town tryout, and will instead open cold in New York at the Foxwoods Theatre on April 17, after a month of previews. "I will take full responsibility for that," Soloway asserts. "I feel so strongly that this show is amazing that I pushed for us to head straight to Broadway, and that the preview audiences will be all we need to fine-tune the show prior to opening. If it blows up in my face, that it was a big mistake, then so be it." Meanwhile, with Springbok also moving to open Disney's _Newsies_ at the Nederlander Theatre this spring, prepping for the Atlanta tryout of _Ghost Brothers of Darkland County_ , postponing the New York opening of the stage transfer of Disney's _Aladdin_ to work out the kinks of that show after a middling reception at its Seattle tryout earlier this year, a limited engagement revival of The Who's _Tommy_ for the spring, continued work on crafting the book for the American version of _The Hunchback of Notre Dame_ , gathering working capital for Michael Kunze's _Rebecca_ and the upcoming film adaptation of _Les Miserables_ by Universal Pictures for next Christmas, Springbok certainly has a lot on its plate besides _Saddles_.

* * *

"Disney Confirms Star Wars Return, Lucas Leaves His Own Company," _The Hollywood Reporter_ , January 25, 2012  
  
Disney today confirmed that it is currently working to pursue new films for Star Wars, to bring the franchise back to life. Disney CEO Bob Iger and Walt Disney Studios chair Meryl Poster held a press conference with series creator George Lucas and longtime Amblin Entertainment producer Kathleen Kennedy to announce the ambitious return.  
  
"When Michael Eisner made the decision to buy Lucasfilm, Ltd. back in 1996, he knew that it was a great fit for The Walt Disney Company," Iger stated. "We could give it attention that 20th Century Fox wasn't capable of providing. The release of the 20th anniversary special editions and the prequel trilogy infused new life into Star Wars, pleased old fans and gave birth to new. And we knew going in that _Revenge of the Sith_ was not going to be the end of it all, though we certainly needed time for it to rest. Now, the time has come to build it up again, and it's not only coming back as we've always known it, but bigger and better than ever before. We are starting by making a sequel trilogy to the events after the original, the official, final end to the saga of the Skywalker family, the first installment of which we expect to be released in 2015. But we're also going to make so-called 'anthology' stories to flesh out the universe, the characters and backstories, and really show Star Wars in a whole new light. We're starting with a five-year plan, with the sequel trilogy and two anthology films, each released every year up until 2019. Then we move on to the next phase."  
  
Lucas stepped up to the microphones. "This is certainly beyond anything I could have ever imagined when I first conceived of Star Wars a long time ago. It has grown beyond anything I could ever have imagined." Then, the audible shock of the press, he made a surprise announcement. "I know that Star Wars, and Lucasfilm, are in great hands, which is why I'm officially announcing my retirement from both." He turned over to Kennedy and motioned her over. "Kathy is the new head of Lucasfilm, and I have every bit of confidence in her. Her work as a producer over the decades with the likes of me and Steven Spielberg shows that she has the talent and the drive to succeed." Lucas then also mentioned, as a side note, that he was handing over any and all treatments and notes that he had made for potential Star Wars stories beyond the six previous films to them. "These are ideas that will be the springboard, the jumping off point to get the creative process flowing, to use how they see fit."  
  
"Good thing we already own all of this, because if we were buying it outright and we didn't use it, that could make things awkward," Iger half-joked in response. When queried about how the governing structure would change with Lucas gone, Poster was sanguine. "Things are the same as they've always been. Each division of The Walt Disney Studios has tremendous autonomy and freedom to run themselves as they see fit. I'm technically their superior, and Bob is mine, but I give everyone enough rope to work with. I don't micromanage people. If that were the case, people like George, Kathy, (Marvel Studios head) Kevin Feige and John Lasseter would not be doing as great a job as they have been, and a lot of pointless internecine struggles would break out, as well as paralysis and communication breakdowns. I may know how to lead, but I also know how to delegate."  
  
When asked what he'd be doing without an active involvement in Star Wars or Lucasfilm, Lucas was focused. "I've always been interested in doing experimental films, the types that may not necessarily be released to the public but are just exercises for me to do for the fun of it. I've been doing this since _Revenge of the Sith_ came out, and it's going to continue. When you have the freedom and permission to fail, you can actually achieve a lot more. But I'll also help carry the torch and help Disney and Star Wars be represented as needed, for celebration events and whatnot."  
  
Star Wars has been a pop culture phenomenon since the release of the original film 35 years ago. Coupled with Spielberg's _Jaws_ , Star Wars established the creation of the modern-day blockbuster, of tentpole films with impressive action and visuals that ticket-buying audiences rush to see en masse and sometimes break established records. The franchise has been referenced and sent up more than any other.

* * *

"Disney To Acquire Controlling Interest In UTV Software Communications Limited (UTV) In India," BusinessWire, January 31, 2012  
  
Burbank, CA. and Mumbai, India– The Walt Disney Company (NYSE: DIS) announced today it will acquire, through a subsidiary, a controlling interest in UTV, one of India’s premier media and entertainment companies. The acquisition will be completed through a successful delisting offer and will enable Disney to integrate UTV’s current operations. In addition, UTV CEO Ronnie Screwvala has been named Managing Director, The Walt Disney Company India reporting to Andy Bird, Chairman, Walt Disney International.  
  
“Increasing our brand presence and reach in key international markets is a cornerstone of our growth strategy. This acquisition expands our footprint significantly and allows us to more effectively build, monetize and brand multi-platform franchises, and deliver a rich library of content to the world’s second largest population,” said Mr. Bird. “We couldn’t be more pleased that Ronnie, with his vast experience and proven track record, will now run our operations in India. Under his leadership, we will be able to deliver more programming on more platforms to this considerable audience.”  
  
As a result of this acquisition and building on UTV’s success in the market, Disney will be India’s leading film studio and will produce both UTV and Disney-branded local films.  
  
UTV is the leading TV producer in India with distribution in 20 countries in seven languages and across 27 channels. Its six owned channels have emerged as the fastest growing cable and satellite network in India. In three years UTV has also become a leading broadcast network in the country. After the transaction, Disney will be one of the leading broadcasters reaching more than 100 million viewers weekly in households across India. Disney will also gain a significant presence in digital media with the addition of UTV’s Indiagames, the country’s number one mobile gaming company, to its portfolio.  
  
“In combining the creative capabilities of each company we will integrate a large stable of vibrant brands and franchises in the branded entertainment space,” said Mr. Screwvala. “With the middle class expected to grow from 50 million to more than 500 million people by 2025, this market offers huge potential for us to deliver quality branded entertainment to consumers,” he said.  
  
Disney currently owns India’s leading kids’ television networks Disney Channel, Disney Channel Classic and Hungama and is the largest retail character licensor in the country. The Company’s mobile, internet and gaming division creates some of India’s most popular content, including Club Penguin, the virtual world for kids that launched in India in 2010.  
  
About The Walt Disney Company:  
The Walt Disney Company, together with its subsidiaries and affiliates, is a leading diversified international family entertainment and media enterprise with five business segments: media networks, parks and resorts, studio entertainment, consumer products and interactive media. Disney is a Dow 30 company and had annual revenues of about $40.9 billion in its last fiscal year.  
  
About UTV Software Communications Ltd:  
UTV is a leading media and entertainment company in India reaching more than 247 million consumers with a presence in motion pictures, television and interactive media. UTV is listed on India’s premier stock exchanges, The Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE Limited) and the National Stock Exchange (NSE), and The Walt Disney Company holds a strategic stake in the company.

* * *

"Look to the Future: Springbok Announces Plan for _Inuyasha_ Soundtrack", Anime News Network, March 2, 2012  
  
Springbok's Enima Studios division is about to unveil the first part of its two-part live action adaptation of _Sailor Moon_ less than three weeks away. The second part will then release around this time next year. But despite the immediate concern, Springbok is also thinking big about its following project, the two-part live action adaptation of _Inuyasha_ that will release in 2014 and 2015, respectively. That film, directed by Gore Verbinski and co-produced by Gale Anne Hurd and Jerry Bruckheimer, is still deep in principal photography at this moment, but it hasn't stopped plans with how to promote it from percolating.  
  
One thing that has been revealed is plans for Exploitation Records to release a special concept album to coincide with part two, separate from the orchestral score, which has recently been announced as given to renowned composer and conductor James Horner, with music supervision and production by his right hand, Simon Franglen. "It will be a really big soundtrack, composed of rock and pop songs that fit the vibe of the story, that fit to tell the lives and emotions of the characters. Most of them will not be in either part of the film, but a few of them will, including the two songs we've already chosen for the lead singles," Jason Flom, who will be credited as executive producer of the album, explains. "Those singles will appear in the closing credits of part two, and will have all the stops given, including full videos."  
  
The first track is "Faule dr Roane," by legendary group Kansas, the band behind iconic hits like "Carry On Wayward Son," "Point of Know Return," and "Dust In the Wind." The band found a new lease on life when they signed to Exploitation Records and they relaunched the 2000 album _Somewhere to Elsewhere_ , as well as keyboardist and lead vocalist Steve Walsh's solo album _Glossolalia_. The band has so far released three more studio albums with the label, including 2005's _Shadowman_ , 2008's _Lightning Strikes Twice,_ an album of orchestral versions of notable past songs and a sequel to 1998's _Always Never the Same_ , which followed the same conceit, and 2009's _Native Window,_ as well as various live and compilation releases. This track is the first, and to date only, track recorded for the band's next album, believed to be titled _Black Butterfly_. "It's a raging, furious rocker, heavier than one would associate with Kansas, and Steve really stepped up to the plate on this one. It's a perfect battle anthem to fit the story. We'll also shoot a video for the song, featuring the band performing both in feudal Japan and modern day Tokyo, against footage of the movie and some archival pictures and clips of the band in the past. It will definitely create a lot of buzz for the band, the most they've had since the '70s."  
  
The second of the two singles is actually a repurposing of an old song, by a very famous pop artist not signed to Exploitation Records. That would be "Then You Look At Me," a plaintive ballad by Celine Dion which originally featured in the 1999 Disney/Sony co-production _Bicentennial Man_ starring Robin Williams as an android who seeks to learn what it means to be human. The movie flopped hard both critically and commercially, and plans for a single release of the song were cancelled by Sony, especially since it was also at the time that one of Dion's biggest post- _Titanic_ songs, "That's the Way It Is," was still strong on the charts. A remix of the song did still feature on Dion's 1999 compilation _All the Way...A Decade of Song_ , and a video of the song was made at the time, though it was largely ignored. "That song deserved so much better, and it's also perfect to represent the character arcs of the story, especially when it comes to love," Flom states. "We've talked to the people at Sony, and to Rene (Angelil, Dion's husband and manager), and they were quite willing to allow us to use the song. We also talked to Celine about making a new video, and she's quite happy to do it. It will also feature her performing the song in both eras in time, against footage of the movie. We're even planning to make videos of the other songs on the soundtrack, even if it's simply repurposing old footage and putting movie clips along it. That's how strongly we feel it will work." Flom would not let us know what other tracks besides the two end credits songs and singles would be featured, other than it would continue the mix of rock and pop songs.

* * *

"NBC Gives Straight-To-Series Order To _Hannibal_ ," by Nellie Andreeva, _Deadline Hollywood_ , March 5, 2012  
  
NBC has pulled the trigger on a 13-episode order to _Hannibal_ , a straight-to-series project from Gaumont International Television and Springbok Productions, written and executive produced by Bryan Fuller and executive produced by Martha DeLaurentiis and Springbok television executives Jay Firestone, Anthony Thomopolous and Channing Dungey (Like all Springbok projects, founders Kurt Cobain, Charlize Theron and Jennifer Todd will credited as producers, in this case along with Carol Dean Trussell, Michael Wray and _Child's Play_ creator Don Mancini). The project is described as a contemporary thriller series featuring the classic characters from Thomas Harris’ novel _Red Dragon_ – FBI agent Will Graham and his mentor Dr. Hannibal Lecter – who are re-introduced at the beginning of their budding relationship. The project was bought by NBC preemptively in November with a script against a 13-episode commitment, meaning that the project wouldn’t go through a pilot stage but straight to series if NBC brass liked the script. The network had a short window after receiving Fuller’s script to pick up the series, which it just did. This marks the second series order for GIT, launched in September with Katie O’Connell as CEO. The company also has a 13-episode pickup at Blockbuster Entertainment, the streaming service for Blockbuster Video, for _Hemlock Grove_ , an hourlong thriller/horror series executive produced and directed by Eli Roth. In addition to _Hannibal_ , Fuller also has the _Munsters_ reboot in the works at NBC. The pilot, _Mockingbird Lane_ , was recently pushed to June because of difficulties with casting.

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"Legendary Entertainment Nears Raising $250 million in Financing," by Ben Fritz, _Los Angeles Times_ , March 28, 2012  
  
Legendary Entertainment, the finance and production company behind _The Dark Knight_ and this weekend's _Wrath of the Titans_ , is close to raising about $250 million in new financing, according to knowledgeable people unauthorized to speak publicly.  
  
The money, split evenly between equity and debt, will be used to refinance the Burbank company's existing debt and to invest in upcoming movies and other content.  
  
The new financing values Legendary at nearly $1.5 billion. It is expected to be completed in the next few weeks.  
  
The deal will join a mix of previous investors -- which have included Accel Partners and Fidelity Investments -- with well-known institutions and private investors new to Legendary, which is headed by Chairman Thomas Tull.  
  
Reached by email, a spokesman for Legendary and Tull declined to comment.  
  
Legendary has in the past exclusively co-financed movies developed by Warner Bros., such as _300_ and _The Hangover_. But it has recently begun overseeing the production of its own films, including Guillermo Del Toro's big-budget tentpole _Pacific Rim_ and the historical adventure movie _The Seventh Son_ , both of which come out in 2013.  
  
This year in addition to _Titans_ , Legendary is co-financing July's _The Dark Knight Rises_. Although Tull's company usually gets a 50% stake of the films in which it invests with Warner Bros., it has a 25% stake in director Christopher Nolan and Springbok Productions' third and final Batman movie. _The Dark Knight Rises_ was the subject of a tense negotiation between Tull and Warner film group president Jeff Robinov last year. Because it is expected to be a hugely successful blockbuster -- _The Dark Knight_ grossed $1 billion in 2008 -- Robinov did not want to give away a big piece of the profit, while Tull saw participation as critical to his company's success and its public image as a maker of fanboy-oriented films.  
  
Legendary has recently launched television and comic book production divisions.  
  
In addition, Tull is setting up a China venture called Legendary East that will finance movies in that country intended for a global audience. However, Legendary East was unable to close a planned $220.5-million capital raise on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange last year through a shell company.  
  
"Legendary East expects to announce its financial and distribution arrangements later this year," a Legendary East spokeswoman said in an email. "On December 31, 2011, the date pre-arranged by Legendary and its partners, Legendary East allowed its previously contemplated business structure to lapse, enabling it to explore relationships with new distribution and financial partners."

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"DreamWorks Studios Stays Alive With New $200 Million Infusion," by Ben Fritz, _Los Angeles Times_ , April 10, 2012  
  
Steven Spielberg's struggling DreamWorks Studios has gotten a new lease on life thanks to a $200 million investment from its primary financier, India's Reliance Entertainment, said a person with knowledge of the matter unauthorized to speak publicly.  
  
A shortage of cash since late last year has left many in Hollywood nervous about DreamWorks' future. The company, led by Chief Executive Stacey Snider, severely cut back on its spending on development and production.  
  
The independent studio has only three movies set to come out this year -- the Springbok-produced _Sailor Moon_ , which is currently playing to great ticket sales and reviews, the low-budget drama _People Like Us_ and the Spielberg-directed, Springbok-produced biopic _Lincoln_ \-- compared with seven in 2011, the first year that it released films in its current incarnation.  
  
After raising $325 million from Reliance and another $325 million in debt, as well as linking a distribution deal with Disney and another $175 million from them in 2009, DreamWorks immediately ran into trouble when its first movies, the young adult science-fiction film _I Am Number Four_ and the big-budget comic book adaptation _Cowboys & Aliens_, flopped. Academy Award nominee _The Help_ (co-produced by Springbok) was a hit, but the remake of _Fright Night_ and Springbok's adaptation of the Andrew Lloyd Webber/Jim Steinman musical _Whistle Down the Wind_ were also bitter disappointments while robot boxing family story _Real Steel_ and Spielberg's own _War Horse_ turned in so-so box-office performances. (The latter was yet another Springbok project and did turn a profit, but missed DreamWorks' earnings targets considerably. Spielberg's _The Adventures of Tintin_ was not a DreamWorks movie.)  
  
Altogether, the year left DreamWorks in a dire financial state, even with Springbok helping pick up the tab with budgets and marketing. As a result, since late last year it has been negotiating with Reliance for more money.  
  
Under the new arrangement, DreamWorks will scale back its ambitions from the six to eight pictures per year that it announced in 2009 to a proposed three to five starting next year. The films will continue to be released by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures through their Touchstone Pictures banner. Donald De Line, who has been the director of production and executive vice president of production for Touchstone since 1985 (and initially planned to leave to start his own company in the '90s when then-COO/president Bob Iger richly rewarded him for staying with the division, much to the consternation of then Walt Disney Studios head Joe Roth), says he is confident that things will work out. "Having DreamWorks product be under our banner gives both DreamWorks and Touchstone considerable prestige. I've been with Touchstone since the beginning, and I'm glad that the rest of Disney still takes us seriously, considers us a priority. We not only give Disney a chance to do mature films, but to really take risks. And DreamWorks definitely represents that."  
  
In addition, DreamWorks now intends to seek co-financiers for all of its movies with large budgets. Already, 20th Century Fox is on board to co-finance _Lincoln_ and _Robopocalypse_ , an adaptation of the bestselling book that is the studio's only movie already scheduled to come out in 2013. The Disney distrib deal is also nonexclusive, meaning DreamWorks is free to make movies with other studios not handled by Disney, but because of the financial uncertainty regarding the 2011 slate, no other studios are biting to take that leap.  
  
DreamWorks, which has about 80 employees, recently lost its well-regarded head of marketing Christine Birch, who moved to the smaller studio FilmDistrict. The company does not intend to replace her, the knowledgeable person said, and will instead rely more on the small team at Disney that handles marketing for DreamWorks releases, as well as the marketing expertise that Springbok has in its own stable.  
  
The studio's lowered ambitions under its new financing marks another bump in its long and difficult path. Founded in 1994 by Spielberg, former Disney President Jeffrey Katzenberg and late (now disgraced) media mogul David Geffen, DreamWorks SKG was originally intended to be a multimedia giant that could stand alongside Hollywood's established studios.  
  
After failing to realize those dreams, the trio sold DreamWorks SKG to Paramount Pictures in 2005, which also happened to be among Geffen's last major deals prior to his exposure. But after Spielberg and Snider clashed with Paramount executives, they spun out the company in its current, third incarnation. (DreamWorks Animation is a stand-alone, publicly-held company spun out to raise capital in 2004 not connected to DreamWorks Studios.)  
  
After initially seeking to raise $1.25 billion, Spielberg and Snider ended up closing their deal for far less after nearly a year of difficult negotiations, with not even Springbok managing to provide as much as hoped for after they publicly took on a massive stake in the new venture.  
  
DreamWorks' troubles reflect a larger trend in Hollywood, in which independent movie studios that don't have reliable cash flow from a library of movies or some other business are struggling to survive when they don't release a string of hits. Relativity Media also came close to folding in the last year before finding a financial savior in supermarket magnate Ron Burkle. Springbok has stepped in to help provide cash infusions for certain groups to keep them alive, most notably Trigger Street Productions, the company founded by Kevin Spacey and Dana Brunetti before the former's fall from grace, and startup funds Skydance Media and Annapurna Pictures, founded respectively by David and Megan Ellison, children of Oracle founder Larry.  
  
The new funding and the amount were first reported by the _New York Times_ and Reuters.

* * *

"The Cult of _Newsies_ ," by Grady Smith, _Entertainment Weekly_ , May 13, 2012  
  
The throng outside Broadway’s Nederlander Theatre tonight is largely twentysomething, largely female — and largely squealing. Tonight’s performance of Disney’s _Newsies_ has just ended and a crowd’s gathered by the stage door. Meagan Lewis, 26, recalls discovering the 1992 movie musical that inspired the show in drama class when she was 15. Kate Hicks, 28, and her cousin used to mount the film’s production numbers — the anthemic ”Seize the Day,” for one — on a trampoline in her backyard. Tami Salame, 29, a superfan from Daytona Beach, Florida, isn’t here tonight, but that’s okay, because she’s seen the show 20 times already — and plans to attend eight more performances in June. ”I’m kinda at this place where it’s like, ‘Wow, do I really need to keep spending money on _Newsies_?”’ she says. ”But _yeah_ , I kinda do.”  
  
Wait a minute. Didn’t the movie _Newsies_ flop? Wasn’t it about a bunch of scrappy newsboys in the 19th century? Wasn’t Christian Bale in it when he was, like, 17? They made a Broadway musical out of _that_? Yes to all of the above. _Newsies_ was an endearingly ambitious but structurally problematic film. When it was released 20 years ago, it grossed a measly $2.8 million — making it one of Disney’s biggest bombs, prior to the 2004 film _The Alamo_ (it even brought the dissolution of Touchwood Pacific Partners, Disney's successor to the successful Silver Screen Partners limited partnerships, meaning Disney's days funding budgets with other people's money exclusively were over). The stage version, which began on Broadway March 15, outearned its film predecessor in less than four weeks. Thanks in part to the movie’s devoted cult following, _Newsies_ , Disney's fifth co-production with Springbok Productions (which is simultaneously raking in the profits of another successful current musical, Mel Brooks' _Blazing Saddles_ ), is breaking records at the Nederlander, raking in up to $1 million per week. The show scored eight nominations for next month’s Tony Awards, including ones for Best Musical, director Jeff Calhoun, and lead actor Jeremy Jordan (in Bale’s role as head newsboy Jack Kelly). It’s a surprising reversal of fortune for a project that once earned headlines for all the wrong reasons.  
  
The Early Edition  
  
 _Newsies_ began as a classic underdog story ripped from the history books. In mid-1990, writers Bob Tzudiker and Noni White (also co-wrote _The Lion King_ , and did the scripts for _The Hunchback of Notre Dame_ , _Tarzan_ and _102 Dalmatians_ for Disney, and Don Bluth's _Anastasia_ for Fox) approached producer Michael Finnell with an idea for a nonmusical drama based on the newsboys’ strike of 1899, when paperboys across New York City organized a union to demand fair compensation from publishers Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst. Finnell liked the idea. ”It had the Disney feel,” he recalls. ”You know, the little kids going up against the big bad industrialists.” He brought a pitch to Disney’s then studio head, Jeffrey Katzenberg, who swiftly ordered a script.  
  
After several drafts, Katzenberg, who had just overseen production on _The Little Mermaid_ and _Beauty and the Beast_ , decided to take _Newsies_ in a vastly different direction. ”The musicals that we were making in animation were really enjoying incredible success at the time,” says Katzenberg, now CEO of DreamWorks Animation. ”We all felt that this story, the period setting — New York and the street — was a great template for a musical.” When Finnell heard the news, he says, he was stunned: ”There was dead silence on my end of the phone. Probably for a minute.”  
  
Disney hired _Dirty Dancing_ choreographer (and Michael Jackson associate) Kenny Ortega to direct, and brought in Oscar-winning composer Alan Menken and lyricist Jack Feldman to write the score. Bale, who’d starred in Steven Spielberg’s _Empire of the Sun_ , was cast as Kelly — despite a clear lack of singing chops. The actor, who was years away from playing Batman (or even Patrick Bateman) and already earning a constantly-spoofed rep for prickliness, spent months learning dance routines and working with vocal coaches. Menken recalls hearing Bale on the first run-through of the ballad ”Santa Fe.” ”I pushed the button [to speak to Bale in the recording studio] and said, ‘Well, it’s a start.’ I remember him saying, ‘It’s a start? It’s a start?! I worked for a year — it’s a START?!”’ says Menken. ”I saw little shades of what was to come, I guess.” In a 2007 interview, Bale told _EW_ he was no longer embarrassed by the film. ”At 17 you don’t want to be doing a musical, you know,” he said. ”At 17 you want to be taken very seriously. And I don’t like musicals!”  
  
The $15 million production went smoothly. The filmmakers felt they had created an exuberant, original live-action musical at a time when Hollywood deemed the genre dead. But when _Newsies_ hit theaters in April 1992, critics savaged the film, particularly drawing their ire towards Bale's flat, below-the-pitch vocals (it also earned five Razzie nominations, ”winning” Worst Original Song for Ann-Margret’s awkward tune ”High Times, Hard Times”) and moviegoers all but ignored it. ”Of course you’re disappointed,” says Ortega, who went on to direct hits like _High School Musical,_ and continued to choreograph for the King of Pop on his Dangerous, HIStory and Invincible World Tours. ”No one wants to put that kind of love and attention and investment into a project and have it not succeed.”  
  
Yet _Newsies_ never slipped into complete obscurity. Throughout the 1990s, it found an incredibly supportive audience on video. (Disney declined to provide sales data but confirms that _Newsies_ is one of the titles most often requested for release on Blu-ray; it’s due June 19.) Moreover, the increasingly pervasive Internet allowed fans, many of them young women, to share their passion. Online they could debate which Newsie was hotter (Racetrack Higgins or Spot Conlon? Discuss), revel in the film’s up-by-the-bootstraps message, and gush about Menken’s catchy songs — which years later were inspiring homemade tributes on YouTube.  
  
Back in the Spotlight  
  
Despite the fan support, Disney never intended to bring _Newsies_ to the Great White Way. Though requests for a stage adaptation outnumbered those for better-known studio hits like _Mulan_ and _Hercules_ , the company originally planned to prep a simple script it could license to schools and amateur theater groups. (Since 2006, more than 4500 schools and other venues have performed Disney’s licensed stage version of _High School Musical_.) But making a stage-ready _Newsies_ proved to be an unexpectedly big challenge. ”We’d been developing it for a long time just for that licensing market,” says Thomas Schumacher, president of the Disney Theatrical Group, ”and we just couldn’t crack the nut to make it purely theatrical.” Menken took several stabs at an adaptation, but he threw in the towel after multiple workshops went nowhere.  
  
Then Springbok Productions, having earned their cachet in the world of musical theater with shows like _Dance of the Vampires_ and _Lestat,_ as well as doing acclaimed film adaptations of _The Phantom of the Opera_ and _Sweeney Todd_ , heard wind of the potential project from Menken and Schumacher. Springbok had also worked with Disney on the stage transfers of _Tarzan_ , _The Little Mermaid_ and _Mary Poppins_ , as well as the seasonal-only production of _The Nightmare Before Christmas_ , and certainly wanted to keep working with the House of Mouse on new stage projects. " _Newsies_ definitely appealed to us," Elizabeth Williams, part of Springbok's theatrical division, says quite eagerly. "I'd worn out my VHS and DVD copies of the film, and took extensive notes about what could be improved to make it a really impressive stage spectacle. I passed them along to Leonard (Soloway, official head of the theatrical division) and Anita (Waxman, Williams' longtime creative partner), and they agreed that something could be done with it. We talked things over with Tom, Alan and Jack, and the train started rolling."  
  
It also helped that Menken’s friend Harvey Fierstein, the actor-playwright who wrote the book for the musical _La Cage aux Folles_ (and also did notable roles in _Mrs. Doubtfire, Independence Day, Mulan_ and _Death to Smoochy_ , as well as the scene-stealing role of Edna Turnblad in the Broadway musical _Hairspray_ and working with pop star Cyndi Lauper, also currently signed to Springbok's Exploitation Records, on a stage musical transfer of the film _Kinky Boots_ ), tried hammering out a script three years ago. ”You know, it is a very tricky thing doing an adaptation of something that’s bad,” says Fierstein, who calls the original film ”awful,” though he fondly remembers using it as a ”babysitting tool” for his nephews. (Williams won't go as far as to call the movie bad, but diplomatically states, "It certainly didn't live up to its promise.") Seeing potential in _Newsies_ ‘ youthful energy and irresistible score, Fierstein changed Bill Pullman’s reporter/mentor character into a spunky female love interest named Katherine (Kara Lindsay), removed strike scenes and songs he considered superfluous, and worked with Menken and Feldman to craft several new tunes and rewrite preexisting songs to sharpen the lyrics.  
  
Last September, Disney premiered Springbok and Fierstein’s version of _Newsies_ — complete with athletic choreography by Christopher Gattelli — at New Jersey’s Paper Mill Playhouse for a three-week-only run. The response was more positive than anyone imagined, and the show’s theme of poor kids challenging greedy corporate titans played into populist sentiments pitting the 99 percent against the 1 percent. ”It had real audience heat,” says Schumacher. ”Probably half the tickets that we sold before our opening we sold before any [traditional] advertising. It was all on the Internet.” But even though Disney had a proven track record in working with Springbok and their most notable collaborations, 2006’s _Tarzan_ and 2008’s _The Little Mermaid_ , had done surprisingly well (if not as massively big as Disney's '90s stage releases), Schumacher proceeded cautiously with _Newsies_. He signed off on a limited three-month engagement in New York City in hopes that the cachet of a ”Broadway musical” would boost licensing fees. The company is expected to announce an open-ended run, in addition to aggressively promoting the cast recording released by Walt Disney Records on April 10.  
  
At least one _Newsies_ fan couldn’t be happier with the show’s unlikely success: Jeremy Jordan, a Tony nominee in the role that Bale made…not very famous. ”I vividly remember seeing _Newsies_ in the movie theater,” says the 27-year-old Texan, munching on biscotti in his cramped backstage dressing room before a recent performance. ”And then I remember seeing it a million times on VHS.”  
  
In recent weeks, Jordan has been gratified to watch the show’s audience expand. ”First it was all the hardcore Fansies,” he says. ”But there are more families coming now.” Beneath a collage of fan mail hanging over his desk sits a folded-up copy of _The Jeremy Jordan Times_ , a painstakingly made newspaper he received two days earlier from two swooning Florida teens who had never even seen the movie. ”Hopefully the next phase will be the tourists, because they’re the ones that make the show run forever.” Regardless of how long it runs, though, _Newsies_ ‘ Broadway edition has already made its failure on the big screen seem like yesterday’s news.

* * *

"News Corp. Confirms Plans to Split the Media Giant," BBC News Website, June 28, 2012 **  
  
**Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation has announced plans to split the $60 billion media giant into two companies. The move should ringfence News Corp's profitable film and media business from its UK newspaper business, which is embroiled in a phone-hacking scandal. News Corp's Fox networks in the US and its stake in UK satellite broadcaster BSkyB would form a film and media unit. Book publisher HarperCollins would join newspaper titles such as _The Sun._ Mr Murdoch will be chairman of both firms.  
  
News Corp. chairman and chief executive Rupert Murdoch said he was "100% committed to the future of both the publishing and media and entertainment businesses. "I would serve as chairman of both companies," he said. But Mr. Murdoch would not be chief executive of the new publishing arm.  
  
This follows pressure from shareholders and UK politicians following an inquiry into practices at the _News of the World_ newspaper by Lord Leveson. Shares in News Corp. were down 1.1% in Thursday trading. The new publishing unit would include the UK newspaper titles _The_ _Sun_ and _The_ _Times_ as well as the _Wall Street Journal_ and _New York Post_ in the US and _The Australian_.  
  
Analysis, by Torin Douglas, Media correspondent  
  
The split makes sense in global business terms. Films and TV are growth sectors, whereas newspapers and publishing are in decline. The move also has regulatory advantages, distancing BSkyB and the US entertainment operations from the tainted reputation of the UK newspapers. We're told it doesn't mean those papers will be sold, or News Corp will renew its bid for BSkyB - though both are possible in the long term.  
  
Yet the move also brings to an end the long-held Murdoch vision of a converged media empire, as set out by James Murdoch in his famous 2009 MacTaggart Lecture. "What were once separate forms of communication, or separate media, are now increasingly interconnected and exchangeable," Mr. Murdoch said. "So we no longer have a TV market, a newspaper market, a publishing market. We have, indisputably, an all-media market." What they won't have, if the split goes ahead, is an all-media company.

* * *

“How Ron Jeremy Allegedly Used His Porn-Star Image to Sexually Prey On Women,” by EJ Dickson, _Rolling Stone_ , July 20, 2012 **  
  
**_From movie shoots to industry conventions to sex-positive campus events, women who encountered the adult-film star have come forward alleging that he used his schlubby image as a cover for harassment and assault_  
  
Charity Carson-Hawke never thought she’d be best friends with a porn star. She’d grown up a preacher’s daughter, and largely led what she describes as a “biblical life.” Then she married one of the brothers of John Wayne Bobbitt, the tabloid fixture and ex-husband of Lorena Bobbitt, and appeared on a radio show in 1996 with Dennis Hof, the owner of Nevada’s Moonlite Bunny Ranch, who told her there was someone who wanted to meet her. It was Ron Jeremy. They grew close, staying friends for 15 years.  
  
“I kind of put his porno life to the side and tried not to judge him by what he did,” says Carson-Hawke, who lives in Florida and works in property management. “We’d have great conversations, and it worked out well. So many years went by, and he’d never crossed the line. Until that night.”  
  
The night Carson-Hawke is referring to is May 4th, 2011, when she says she came to Los Angeles to visit Jeremy. (Photos she shared with _Rolling Stone_ from that evening appeared to corroborate this.) His apartment was messy, he’d said, so he booked a room at the Highland Gardens Hotel. The second she saw him, she says, something seemed off. “I don’t know if it was his age, or his mind’s messed up, but he was not normal that night. He was kind of in a zone, kind of full of sadness. He just looked lost,” she says. According to Carson-Hawke, they were in his hotel room with a few other people, when Jeremy said he wanted to show her something. She followed him into what she thought was another room in the suite, which turned out to be a bathroom.  
  
That’s when she says he slammed the door behind him, pinned her against the wall, and tried to grope her. “He was trying to put my hand on his penis,” she alleges. “I’m just like, ‘What the hell are you doing?’ I’m screaming at him and fighting.” For a while, they struggled against the wall, she says, until she squeezed out from his arms and walked out the door. (A friend of Carson-Hawke’s confirmed she told him a version of this story, in which she said Jeremy “violated her,” shortly after the alleged assault.)  
  
For a few hours, Carson-Hawke says she stayed at the hotel, going down to the pool with Jeremy and her friend, who had accompanied her to the party and didn’t want to leave. “I didn’t know what to do. I mean, when you’re in that situation and I was in such a zone of shock, I just froze,” she says. The next day, she says Jeremy called her nine times, leaving voicemail messages begging to speak with her. She refused to speak with him, deciding to go directly to the L.A. district attorney on June 4th. (The district attorney’s office declined to comment for this story; the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department confirmed there is an open investigation pertaining to a report number Carson-Hawke supplied to _Rolling Stone_.)  
  
“I sat on it for a minute, ’cause like I said, we were friends for so long. I didn’t know what was wrong with him, but he wasn’t under any kind of influence. He was sober in that action,” she says. “So I felt, OK, if he’s going to do this sober, then I need to say something about it, because this is not right to me.”  
  
According to nearly a dozen women I interviewed, this has been the legendary porn performer’s modus operandi for years. An adult-industry legend whose name is synonymous with smut, Jeremy is alleged to have committed serial sexual abuse for decades, with many women claiming that he uses his comically ribald porn persona as both a justification for and a shield against allegations of impropriety. (Jeremy issued a lengthy statement denying the allegations after he was charged. “If anyone was ever made to feel uncomfortable by ANY of our interactions, I’m deeply sorry,” he wrote. “That was never my intention and it breaks my heart in half.” His lawyer did not respond to multiple requests for comment for this story.)  
  
While many of his alleged victims were women in the adult industry, for years Jeremy’s status as a successful crossover performer — someone who has equal cachet in both the adult and mainstream worlds — has afforded him access to so-called civilian women, or women outside the industry. At best, the women said, they were caught off guard by his behavior; at worst, they were traumatized by it. Almost all said they were initially disarmed by his affable, exaggeratedly sleazy persona.  
  
“For a lot of us, we don’t think of Ron as a porn star,” says Collette McLafferty, a wardrobe designer who alleges that Jeremy grabbed her breast without her consent when she worked with him on a B-movie, non-adult film set. “We think of him as a reality star. The guy who befriended Tammy Faye [Bakker] on _The Surreal Life_.” (Another actor on the set confirmed her story.)  
  
Besides being known for his ten-inch manhood and his everyman image of being able to get women despite being hairy and overweight, his crossover appeal in other areas was known. He was made a consultant on Paul Thomas Anderson’s landmark film _Boogie Nights_ , somewhat of paean to the Golden Age of Porn. Jeremy appeared frequently in films by Lloyd Kaufman’s Troma Entertainment, such as _Tromeo & Juliet, Citizen Toxie: The Toxic Avenger IV_ and _Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead_. He made background and supporting appearances in films and shows like _Killing Zoe, Nash Bridges, Orgazmo, Detroit Rock City, Bruce Almighty,_ and _Just Shoot Me!_ Most notably in his mainstream work, he made such appearances in various film and TV projects of Springbok Productions, including _Looking for Lucky, Diamond Dogs, The Point, Matt Foley: Motivational Speaker,_ the _Let’s Be Spies_ trilogy, and even filmed scenes for Springbok’s two-part live action film adaptation of _Sailor Moon_ , a character that has been cut from the final product. He also put this persona to use promoting the sexual aid eXtenZe, appeared in a documentary entitled _Porn Star: The Legend of Ron Jeremy_ (which inspired the subtitle of Adam McKay’s _Anchorman_ ) in 2001, and published a memoir, _The Hardest (Working) Man in Show Business,_ in 2007.  
  
Last month, these kinds of allegations caught up with him when the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office announced that it was charging him with eight counts of forcible rape and sexual assault, from incidents dating back to 2008. His bail was set at $6.6 million. According to the _Los Angeles Times_ , at least 25 new allegations were leveled against Jeremy after the initial charges were filed, prosecutors say. In a tweet, Jeremy said, “I am innocent of all charges. I can’t wait to prove my innocence in court! Thank you to everyone for all the support.” He pleaded not guilty to all charges in court.  
  
Many of the women accusing Jeremy of assault were thrilled by the charges. “I’m so happy right now. You have no idea. I can’t stop crying,” Carson-Hawke told me the day he was charged. Others, however, found them more bittersweet, wondering why it took so long for the DA’s office to finally charge Jeremy a history of allegations spanning decades and the changing mores regarding assault allegations since the initial exposure of glam rock star Gary Glitter back in 1997. “I feel like I don’t want to care [about the charges],” says Alexandra Fine, CEO of the sexual-health startup Dame Products, who alleges that Jeremy sexually assaulted her when she was a college student in 2009. “I feel selfish that I didn’t go to the police and that he continued to hurt women for a few more years.”  
  
Fine met Jeremy in 2009, when she organized an event for a sexual health and awareness week at Washington University at St. Louis, inviting Jeremy to campus as a guest. Fine and another student were tasked with picking up Jeremy from the airport and escorting him to an interview at the campus radio station. First, though, they stopped by his hotel so he could check in. Almost immediately, she says, Jeremy asked her and her friend if he could sign their breasts; they both agreed. None of this struck Fine as particularly odd: He was, after all, a pornographer, and this was, after all, Sex Week. “The whole thing was pretty absurd and hilarious,” she says. “He seemed like a parody of himself, and the whole situation had a gross, funny irony to it that felt harmless at first.”  
  
That changed, however, when Fine’s friend left the room, and Jeremy asked Fine if she wanted to see his penis. Although she declined, he showed it to her anyway. “He said he wanted to show me his ‘trick’ for keeping his dick hard during shoots,” she recalls. “So he showed me his dick again … I’d get a little freaked out, like ‘Come on, dude,’ and he would respond with ‘Oh, I’m only playing.’”  
  
Then, she says, he told her he had another “trick” he wanted to show her, but he had to stand behind her. Fine was uncomfortable but acquiesced; she says Jeremy then digitally penetrated her without her consent.  
  
At the time, Fine says, she was confused by the encounter. “I remember trying to rationalize what was happening, and why he might have felt like it was normal or appropriate,” she says. Although she told a handful of people about what had happened in Ron Jeremy’s hotel room, she says her feelings of shame largely kept her silent. ( _Rolling Stone_ spoke with her friend from school, who confirmed the details Fine shared.) There was also the fact that she wasn’t sure whether what had happened in the hotel room was her fault to begin with. “His career, and the character he cultivated, made it hard for me to understand whether this was an assault or not,” she says.  
  
Nirvana frontman and Springbok co-founder Kurt Cobain commented as to how his company became acquainted with Jeremy, and the barrage of bad publicity it has brought them. “I’ve never been particularly into the porn scene, but I’ve always respected those involved in it; and Charlize (Theron) and I have also done lots of work with the Free Speech Coalition, which the adult film industry originally founded.” The Free Speech Coalition is known for their lobbying against censorship and obscenity laws, and has also done some work pressing for prostitution to be legalized. They were especially vocal during the moral panic over sex and violence in the media in the ‘90s.  
  
It was at a rally in 2000 that Cobain and Theron attended where they first met Jeremy in person. “Ron came over to us, seemed quite in awe of us. He acted playful, and took some photos with us, then even talked about how if Springbok took off, he hoped we’d find roles for him in our projects.” There was, however, a warning sign during that initial meeting. “Ron proceeded to try and grope Charlize, and even said, ‘Are you breastfeeding right now (commenting on Theron giving birth to their twins Edward and Olivia months ago)? I’d love to get in on some of that.’ She batted him off, and slapped his hand, then Ron put on these puppy dog eyes, saying, ‘Oh come on, I was just fooling. I’d never do that for real.’ After Ron went off, she said, ‘I don’t like him, Kurt, there’s something off about this guy. I said we have to give him a chance, just to at least see what happened, get to know him better.”  
  
Cobain says he and Jeremy never became friends, but that besides appearing for Springbok shoots, he’d often pop in at parties, backstage at Nirvana concerts, public dinners, and so on. “He definitely thrived being the center of attention, and he definitely loved being part of the in crowd. I mean, he got Slash to judge nude beauty contests with him, for God’s sakes. He certainly never went on to Charlize again, but I personally never saw him do things like that again. I did hear it, secondhand, but again, he told me he just liked to joke around, that no one would actually do something like that in the open.”  
  
It was during the _Sailor Moon_ shoot, helmed by _Monster_ director Patty Jenkins, that something finally gave. Jeremy allegedly frequently tried to harass Kim Basinger and Sean Young, and even approached lead actress Kiralee Hayashi by pressuring her to agree to let him expose himself and ejaculate on her. A makeup artist watched the latter scene and reported the incident to the production office and Jenkins, and the director personally terminated Jeremy from the project. “I feel like a total fucking idiot,” Cobain says. “I apologized up and down to Charlize that I didn’t take her concerns seriously enough back then, especially given that I’ve always taken women’s rights and views as of great importance. Of course, she didn’t hold it against me, but I still feel guilty that I ended up putting Ron in a position of letting a lunatic run the asylum.”  
  
Michele Wilderman, a makeup artist who met Jeremy on the set of the porn spoof _Rocky XXX: A Parody Thriller_ in 2011, tells a similar story. When she first met Jeremy, she posed for a photo with him topless — an act that she said was intended as a joke.  
  
Thirty minutes later, however, she was doing his makeup in a bathroom in the house where they were shooting when he closed the door behind her and asked if she wanted to see his “schmekel.”  
  
“I was like, ‘Um … no,’ in that very weird, hesitant, awkward-situation kind of way,” Wilderman says. “Obviously, I didn’t ask to see it, but I still don’t want to be like, ‘Ew, no.’ I’m supposed to work with this guy all day.”  
  
From there, she alleges, Jeremy forcibly kissed her, turned her around, stuck his hands up her shorts, and attempted to digitally penetrate her, despite her repeated refusals and attempts to get to the door. She says it wasn’t until a production assistant knocked on the door to ask if they were ready to shoot the scene that Jeremy stopped.  
  
“You would think if someone was touching you in a way you didn’t want to be touched, they would understand that’s something you didn’t want,” Wilderman says. “Either he didn’t care, or he didn’t understand that’s what I was doing, trying to get away.” While Jeremy shot his scene outdoors, she spent the rest of the day inside the house, where the owner gave her a change of clothes and let her take a shower. “I just felt disgusting,” she says.  
  
Wilderman says she immediately reported Jeremy’s behavior to her production office. Her supervisor asked if she wanted to press charges or have him dismissed from set. Not wanting to disrupt the shooting schedule for the day, she said no. “I just felt like it wouldn’t have made a difference,” she says.  
  
Stormy Jane, a stylist for the film, confirmed that Wilderman told her about the encounter directly after it happened, and says that she too had had her breast grabbed by Jeremy without her consent on set. “The way I saw it, they [the producers] did the bare minimum,” she says. “They just did what they were technically supposed to do.”  
  
When reached for comment, Nancy Glass, the CEO of production company Glass Entertainment Group, confirmed that the production office was indeed aware of Wilderman’s allegations against Jeremy, and that they subsequently cut him from the film and recast his character. “When it happened I was very upset,” she says. “So we asked the people involved, ‘What would you like to do? Would you like to go to the police?’ We followed their direction.” She says she did not find out about the allegations until after Jeremy had finished shooting, “or we probably would’ve kicked him off set.”  
  
For Wilderman, the new charges come as a relief. “I always go through these things in my head. Why did you go to the bathroom? Why did you think it’d be funny to take the picture? It’s so easy to blame yourself,” she says. “I feel like this is some closure.”  
  
Another woman who encountered Jeremy, however, did go to the police: Kristin Brodie, a Seattle-based model who won a competition at the radio station KISW in 2011. She alleges that Jeremy digitally penetrated her without her consent while she posed for a photo with him during one of her promotional appearances for the station. According to Brodie, Jeremy approached her and a few other KISW representatives for a photo. After he signed their breasts, an act they consented to, Brodie pulled up Snapchat on her phone and posed for a selfie with him, whereupon Jeremy allegedly grabbed her rear end and attempted to digitally penetrate her without her consent. While she says others were present, including a handler, no one intervened.  
  
Brodie filed a police report against Jeremy in Pierce County, Washington, the next day, which was later referred to the Tacoma City Attorney’s Office. Brodie says that when she met with the office, she reviewed footage from the event, and because only her and Jeremy’s shoulders and above were visible in the video, the office concluded there wasn’t enough evidence to continue with the criminal case.  
  
Both offices declined to file charges, and a civil case was resolved out of court, with Brodie saying she couldn’t comment on the outcome beyond that. But her failure to see Jeremy held accountable for his actions continued to haunt her. “It shattered my sense of justice, I suppose,” she says. “I realize now I was quite naive [in] that I subscribed to the narrative of ‘see something, say something, and justice will be served.’”  
  
To this day, she is furious that it took more than two years after coming forward publicly with her own allegation for Jeremy to end up behind bars. “Any and all rapes and sexual assaults he committed after mine, those are on the Tacoma DA’s hands,” she says. (“After reviewing the allegations against Ronald Jeremy Hyatt, the Tacoma City Attorney’s Office determined not to file charges,” a representative for the office tells _Rolling Stone_.)  
  
Part of the reason why Jeremy managed to escape notice for his alleged criminal behavior for so long was due to the fact that he was something of a Hollywood fixture, frequenting the same eateries and bars and becoming so omnipresent that people grew accustomed to his behavior. One of these spots was the Rainbow Bar & Grill, a famous restaurant and bar on the Sunset Strip in Los Angeles notorious for being the locale where John Belushi had his last meal, where John Lennon and the so-called Hollywood Vampires frequently gathered, where the bands of the ‘80s Sunset Strip scene have made their second home, and where Motörhead’s Lemmy Kilmister can be found almost every night.  
  
According to Los Angeles locals who spoke to _Rolling Stone_ , Jeremy was a regular at the Rainbow. Emily J. Sullivan, who is a waitress there, says he would often hold court there, going up to people’s tables when they recognized him and then eating their food. It was there, she says, where he had a captive audience for his lechery. “He would grope patrons and waitresses. He’d do this weird thing where he’d come up behind us and try to kiss our neck and our ears and grab our butts and call it the Ron Jeremy Tickle,” she tells _Rolling Stone_.  
  
A friend of Sullivan’s and former frequent Rainbow patron confirmed her account. The friend, who asked not to be named, said the laid-back, somewhat seedy reputation of the Rainbow created a “vibe” that made such transgressions seem normalized, if not acceptable. “It’s like a different place, a different time. It felt like you either go along or move along,” she says. “If you were to say something against the Rainbow or complain, you’d be like a narc, I guess.”  
  
Carson-Hawke says the atmosphere at the Rainbow was conducive to Jeremy’s behavior, though she contends that more often than not, she saw fans approaching him rather than the other way around. “He would just roam the Rainbow Bar and Grill looking for attention from women” she says.  
  
Sullivan says that to her knowledge, none of the serving staff ever complained about such treatment. But three of the incidents related to the charges against him reportedly took place at the Rainbow, according to the industry publication xBiz: two sexual assaults in 2010, as well as forcible rape of a 30-year-old woman in July 2011. (The Rainbow did not respond to _Rolling Stone’s_ request for comment.)  
  
Jeremy’s alleged cavalier attitude toward women’s personal boundaries extended to his industry colleagues as well. Many performers in the adult entertainment industry have reported constant violations, including during conventions. “His name and his brand have crossed over in the mainstream. It’s part of the mainstream vernacular,” one female performer says. “There are probably jokes on _The Simpsons_ about him.” (It seems there are not, though Jeremy did make an appearance as himself on the third season of _Family Guy_.)  
  
According to one woman and a friend, who was also at the event, the two approached Jeremy to ask if she could interview him for a podcast. He agreed, and suggested he and the victim go into a stairwell so they could have some privacy. While there, she alleges, Jeremy began to get aggressive, putting his hand up her dress and inserting a finger into her vagina. It wasn’t until she started bleeding on her white dress — a byproduct, she says, of his lengthy fingernails — that he finally stopped. (The friend confirmed details of her account, as well as seeing blood on her white dress.)  
  
Like many of Jeremy’s other alleged victims, the woman was new enough to the adult industry that she was not well-versed in industry codes of conduct. At that point, she didn’t know whether Jeremy’s behavior was the exception or the rule in the adult industry. She did know, however, was that it was not a good idea to report it.  
  
“I didn’t think [about] going up to any law-enforcement official and saying ‘Excuse me, sir, I’m a porn performer at a porn show, and Ron Jeremy just touched my vagina and made it bleed,’” she says sarcastically. “I’ve seen how law enforcement deals with these issues. It’s not pretty.”  
  
For his accusers, many of whom are current or former sex workers, this apathy is not surprising. “It was just normalized in the industry. Despite the way the mores have changed regarding allegations of sexual assault and conduct of entertainers, the porn industry has simply done precious little to change. It’s instilled into porn performers this is the way it is, enjoy it or keep your mouth shut, or you’re not going to get work,” says Vicky Vixen, an adult performer, who alleges that Jeremy attempted to digitally penetrate her at the XRCO Awards in 2011. Vixen believes that the fact that many of his victims were adult performers is “maybe the reason why it took so long” for charges to be filed. “It’s kind of like, ‘Oh, well, you’re a porn star, you should expect it,’” she says.  
  
Of course, not all of Jeremy’s victims were sex workers; many of them were women outside the industry who had approached him with prior knowledge of his lecherous persona and, when that persona turned out to be accurate, blamed themselves for what happened. “He genuinely believes that since he’s had sex with the most women on video, he has a certain amount of real estate purchased on all of our bodies when we come within six feet of him. This is something he seems to truly believe,” says Brodie, who attended Jeremy’s bail hearing in June. “But I did not give up my civil liberties just because I ventured into the same vicinity as [him].”  
  
Many of Jeremy’s alleged victims continue to grapple with having been violated by a man who has arguably built his brand on his ignorance of or gleeful flouting of the very concept of sexual consent. “I can see now that … his sleazy persona was a sort of weird double bluff,” Fine says. “As though someone playing up their lewdness for laughs couldn’t be capable of actual inappropriate behavior. But it’s become clear that an ironic predator is still a predator.”

* * *

Public Statements by the Crew of _The Dark Knight Rises_ After Aurora massacre, July 21, 2012

Christopher Nolan: "Speaking on behalf of the cast and crew of _The Dark Knight Rises_ , I would like to express our profound sorrow at the senseless tragedy that has befallen the entire Aurora community. I would not presume to know anything about the victims of the shooting, but that they were there last night to watch a movie. I believe movies are one of the great American art forms and the shared experience of watching a story unfold on screen is an important and joyful pastime. The movie theatre is my home, and the idea that someone would violate that innocent and hopeful place in such an unbearably savage way is devastating to me. Nothing any of us can say could ever adequately express our feelings for the innocent victims of this appalling crime, but our thoughts are with them and their families."  
Kurt Cobain: "My heart is sick over the fact that such an appalling and profoundly disturbing act of violence could occur in one of the most wholesome and pure places left in the world, the movie theatre. It's a place where friends and family can forget about the troubles of the real world and escape in the art of a great story. I cannot express enough the grief that I and my family feel over this."  
Charlize Theron: "Nothing is more sacred to me than the idea that watching a movie should be a joyful event, where all the hassles and pressures of ordinary life vanish, and for a brief moment, everything is right in the world. Going for a night out with your family and your friends is an incredible experience, and the idea that such a cowardly and despicable individual chose to use that to their advantage and make it a war zone is beyond horrifying. My thoughts are with you all, as I keep my own family close to me at this time."  
Springbok: "We at Springbok Productions are devastated that such a horrific act could take place, and we would be feeling exactly the same if it was at a screening for a film we were not involved in. Humanity is sacred to us, and to know that so many people died needlessly before their time is truly despicable. As of this moment, all of our proceeds from the film will go to benefit the families of the victims in Aurora, as this is the truly the least we can do to help the community heal."

* * *

"NCAA hands out severe punishment for Penn State and Michigan State," by Eric Prisbell, _USA Today_ , July 23, 2012  
  
Chastising Penn State for "hero worship" and it and Michigan State for a warped athletic culture, NCAA President Mark Emmert issued a landmark ruling Monday morning, levying unprecedented penalties against the Penn State football program and Michigan State wrestling program that will cripple its ability to remain competitive on the field for years.  
  
Penn State coach Joe Paterno was fired in November following revelations of sexual abuse by former assistant Jerry Sandusky. Michigan State sports doctor and US Olympics gymnastics coach Larry Nassar was arrested around the same time for possession of child pornography on his hard drives and violating wrestling athletes for years  
  
Emmert handed the Penn State football program and Michigan State gymnastics program a five-year death penalty, meaning that neither team can compete in any kind of football or gymnatics match for that period. Emmert also banned Penn State from bowl games for an additional four years, imposed massive scholarship reductions on both schools (a total of 75 initial scholarships lost over four years) and fined them a combined $105 million.  
  
Emmert also vacated all of Penn State's victories from 1998 through 2011, meaning former coach Joe Paterno loses 111 wins from what had been a total of 409 victories, the most all time in major college football.  
  
The NCAA, which also placed Penn State and Michigan State on five years' probation, is reserving the right to investigate and punish individuals implicated in child sex-abuse cases until after criminal proceedings.  
  
"This is an unprecedented, painful chapter in the history of intercollegiate athletics," Emmert said during a news conference at NCAA headquarters in Indianapolis.  
  
The ruling was precedent-setting because Emmert bypassed usual investigative protocol and instead turned to the NCAA executive committee and Division I Board of Directors for the authority to punish Penn State and Michigan State because senior leaders concealed information for years that could have stopped former assistant coach Jerry Sandusky from sexually abusing children, as well as an apparent complete lack of even the most remote going through the motions to keep tabs on Nassar and his coaching methods. Emmert's actions were swift and decisive, and the boards unanimously supported the sanctions.  
  
It was also groundbreaking because of the severity of the penalties. While Jenison Fieldhouse, where the gymnastics team for Michigan State is located, still has plenty of athletic activities even after the basketball team moved to the Breslin Center, Beaver Stadium will have no tenant until the Nittany Lions are allowed to compete again.  
  
In the end, Emmert said he sought sanctions that would not only punish but force Penn State and Michigan State to begin to "rebuild their athletic culture." Emmert sought to minimize the damages to innocent individuals.  
  
"We hope we would never, ever see anything of this magnitude or egregiousness again in our lives," Emmert said. "But we do have to make sure that the cautionary tale of athletics overwhelming core values of the institution and losing sight of why we are really participating in these activities can occur. That's the balance that every university needs to strive for."  
  
In circumventing the traditional investigation process, Emmert relied on the conclusions of the nearly 500-page report by former FBI director Louis Freeh. Emmert said the report, which drew upon more than 6 million documents, was more comprehensive than any investigation the NCAA ever could have conducted.  
  
The NCAA informed Penn State and Michigan State of the penalties it would impose. The universities agreed with the sanctions and will not appeal.  
  
"The NCAA ruling holds the university accountable for the failure of those in power to protect children and insist that all areas of the university community are held to the same high standards of honesty and integrity," Penn State President Rodney Erickson said in a statement. Michigan State President Lou Anna Simon said much the same in her statement.  
  
Regarding the $60 million fine, Erickson said Penn State will pay $12 million a year for the next five years into a special endowment created to fund programs for the detection, prevention and treatment of child abuse. Michigan State will pay out their $45 million fine in $9 million installments over the five-year period.  
  
Because Penn State will be ineligible for bowl games — or the Big Ten title game — for the next decade, it will not be eligible to receive its share of the conference's bowl revenues. Estimated to be $13 million, the money will be donated to establish charitable organizations in the Big Ten communities dedicated to the protection of children.  
  
The NCAA will also permit current or incoming Penn State football players to transfer without sitting out a season, which is likely to further impede the on-field rebuilding process for first-year coach Bill O'Brien.  
  
Said O'Brien in a statement: "Today we receive a very harsh penalty from the NCAA and as Head Coach of the Nittany Lions football program, I will do everything in my power to not only comply, but help guide the University forward to become a national leader in ethics, compliance and operational excellence. I knew when I accepted the position that there would be tough times ahead. But I am committed for the long term to Penn State and our student athletes."  
  
O'Brien agreed to a five-year deal in January. According to the version of his contract available on the school website, he can't terminate the contract because of sanctions against the program without giving the school a sizable buyout payment. His base salary this season is $950,000.  
  
Some former NCAA investigators and infractions committee chairmen said it was rare, if not unprecedented, for the association to address the Penn State case because it involved a cover-up of criminal activity rather than a violation of traditional NCAA bylaws, and that the Michigan State case revealed a basic failure to implement rudimentary guardrails. Emmert said circumventing the infractions committee was no reflection on the committee or the NCAA's enforcement process.  
  
"These are extraordinary circumstances," said Ed Ray, the chairman of the executive committee who also spoke at the news conference. "The executive committee has the authority to act on behalf of the entire association in extraordinary circumstances. And we have chosen to exercise that authority …  
  
"The cautionary tale is that every major college or university needs to do a gut-check and ask where are we on the appropriate balance between culture and athletics and the broader culture of the university and make certain they got balance right and, if not, they take corrective action."  
  
Said Tom Yeager, commissioner of the Colonial Athletic Association and a former chair of the NCAA Committee on Infractions: "It's a new day. What you are going to see is, this action will be subject to question going forward. Anytime there will be something not necessarily a strict NCAA infractions case, all those areas out there, the first question will be whether that falls under that category or not."  
  
The scholarship cuts essentially bump Penn State to the scholarship levels of schools in the Football Championship Subdivision.  
  
The school will be forced to vacate all wins from 1998-2011, a total of 112, and serve five years of probation.  
  
Paterno was fired in November during the scandal after 409 wins at the school. That total is now officially 298. One victory last season came under interim coach Tom Bradley.  
  
Florida State's Bobby Bowden, who had 12 wins vacated because of NCAA violations, is now the major college leader with 377 victories. Grambling's Eddie Robinson becomes the Division I leader with 408 wins in 57 seasons, ending in 1997.  
  
The Penn State team gathered to watch the NCAA announcement in the Lasch Building. Afterward, players left the football offices without comment to news media assembled there.  
  
The NCAA has imposed the so-called death penalty, which essentially shuts down a program for a specified period, on a major college football team just once. And it has taken Southern Methodist more than two decades to recover after it was shut down in the late 1980s following a scandal that involved, among other violations, widespread booster payments to players.  
  
But with Penn State's case, the NCAA confronted a scandal unlike any the association had ever seen. The wrongdoing, while egregious, did not reflect traditional violations of NCAA bylaws. And no obvious competitive advantage was gained by the cover-up of criminal activity.  
  
Paterno's two national titles remain, but his statue is gone, his reputation is irreparably scarred and the program he built during a 61-year career, 46 as head coach, is left to deal with harsh NCAA sanctions and the pending rulings of ongoing investigations.  
  
With the NCAA verdict handed down, Penn State and Michigan State still could face further punitive measures. The Department of Justice and U.S. Department of Education are conducting investigations into the schools' actions in relation to the scandal.

* * *

"DreamWorks Replaces Disney With New International Partner," by Ben Fritz, _Los Angeles Times_ , August 29, 2012

Walt Disney Studios will no longer release movies from its partner DreamWorks Studios everywhere around the world.

The two companies, and partner Springbok Productions (who help chip in co-production for some projects and help with P&A costs for all of them in the deal) have renegotiated their longstanding agreement. Going forward, Disney will release movies produced by DreamWorks, the independent studio led by Steven Spielberg and Stacey Snider that made _War Horse_ and _The Help_ (along with Springbok as co-producer), in the U.S., Canada, Latin America, Australia, and most of Asia.

DreamWorks has signed a deal with Mister Smith Entertainment, a new company headed by Summitt Entertainment co-founder David Garrett, to handle sales in Europe, Africa and the Middle East.

Mister Smith (whose name was inspired by the Frank Capra classic _Mr. Smith Goes to Washington_ ) will pre-sell foreign distribution rights to upcoming DreamWorks productions such as _Need for Speed_ , based on the car racing video game, and an untitled comedy from French-Canadian filmmaker and comedian Ken Scott, to local distributors in each foreign country.

That arrangement, which is commonly used by other independent studios such as Lionsgate and Relativity Media, and which has been used by major studios and the likes of Springbok for some of their projects as well, will give DreamWorks more money for production, as the foreign partners will pay a guaranteed amount of money up front for the rights to release films.

Previously, DreamWorks financed its movies (with help from Springbok) and then received all of the foreign box office receipts, minus a fee paid to Disney.

After several high-profile flops last year, such as _Cowboys & Aliens_ and _I Am Number Four_ , and a new financing deal with backer Reliance Entertainment in April, DreamWorks’ financial resources have been significantly decreased. The new international arrangement is thus a critical component of the studio’s ability to continue making movies.

Mister Smith will not be involved in the release of upcoming DreamWorks movies _Lincoln_ (also a Springbok co-production) and _Robopocalypse_ , both directed by Spielberg. 20th Century Fox co-financed those films and will release them overseas. It will also not be involved in the forthcoming second part of DreamWorks and Springbok/Enima Studios' two-film live action adaptation of _Sailor Moon_ out next year.

Garrett, a former president of Summit’s international unit, launched Mister Smith at the Cannes Film Festival in May together with backer Constantin Film.

* * *

"Middleman in Financing of _Rebecca_ Is Arrested on Federal Fraud Charges," By William K. Rashbaum and Patrick Healy, _The New York Times_ , October 15, 2012  
  
A Long Island stockbroker defrauded the producers of the Broadway musical _Rebecca_ with an elaborate scheme that included a fictitious loan and phantom investors who were conjured up as part of a sham plan to rescue the financially ailing show, federal authorities charged in a criminal complaint Monday.  
  
The stockbroker, Mark C. Hotton, collected $60,000 for his efforts before his arrest early Monday by federal authorities, who described the scheme as a complex fraud that was “stranger than fiction.”  
  
Investigators said that during the spring, as Mr. Hotton was shutting down one scheme by killing off a phony investor whose $2 million he could not produce, he began a second scheme to earn fees from the producers by helping to secure a $1.1 million loan.  
  
When none of the money surfaced, the production was potentially on the ropes before rehearsals even began. By early June, someone blew the whistle on Mr. Hotton, and cleaning of house promptly began, but not before Mr. Hotton had collected his money — including $18,210.88 for a supposed African safari with one phantom investor, “Paul Abrams,” and the investor’s eldest son, the authorities said.  
  
Investigators arrested Mr. Hotton before dawn at his waterfront Long Island home and charged him with two counts of wire fraud, which each carry a maximum prison term of 20 years.  
  
“Mark Hotton perpetrated stranger-than-fiction frauds both on and off Broadway,” Preet Bharara, the United States attorney in Manhattan, said in a news release. “Hotton concocted a cast of characters to invest in a major musical — investors who turned out to be deep-pocketed phantoms. To carry out the alleged fraud, Hotton faked lives, faked companies and even staged a fake death, pretending that one imaginary investor had suddenly died from malaria.” That was Abrams.  
  
One of Mr. Hotton’s lawyers, Evan Lipton, entered a plea of not guilty on Mr. Hotton’s behalf at the arraignment in federal court in Central Islip, N.Y. Magistrate Judge Arlene R. Lindsay ordered Mr. Hotton held without bail after an assistant United States attorney, Burton T. Ryan Jr., charged that he was a flight risk, had lied in a personal bankruptcy filing last year and had been the subject of many complaints from people who said they had lost as much as $15 million to him in other types of frauds.  
  
The Hotton schemes, if proved, would be a rare instance of fraud derailing a big-budget Broadway musical, and the elaborate plot laid out in the criminal complaint rivals the twists in _Rebecca_ , based on the gothic mystery novel by Daphne du Maurier. The production, written by Michael Kunze, librettist for _Elisabeth_ and _Dance of the Vampires_ (and like those two, had previously been a smash hit in Austria and Germany before being adapted for English-speaking audiences), was announced last year after a staged reading, to be brought to life by Springbok Productions, the multi-armed entertainment conglomerate founded by Kurt Cobain and Charlize Theron, who have an established track record in staged musicals, especially Herr Kunze’s prior works.  
  
However, in what appears to be a shocking lapse of care, Springbok’s theatricals head, Leonard Soloway, admits that they delegated far more responsibility for checking finances than they have previously done to the other lead producers of _Rebecca_ , Ben Sprecher and Louise Forlenza. “Maybe a certain kind of arrogance had crept into our thinking,” Mr. Soloway states. “Up to now, we’d always worked with other producers in good faith, and the money had always come in a timely manner. I also thought Ben and Louise were perfectly capable of holding down the fort without having a babysitter. Thankfully, someone raised the alarm and a routine audit exposed the truth to us. If that hadn’t happened, we probably would’ve been in a holding pattern to wait, then forced to pull the plug before rehearsals began two weeks ago.”  
  
The production, especially Mr. Sprecher and Ms. Forlenza, faced significant financial challenges by this juncture. They had spent at least $6 million on the show from funds raised from real investors and incurred an additional $8 million in debts, according to authorities. They would be liable for the money if the production did not eventually open. Thankfully, Springbok kicked in more cash, and they also talked fellow producers Bob Boyett, Lawrence Horowitz, USA Ostar Theatricals, East of Doheny and Barry and Fran Weissler into helping make up the difference. The show is still scheduled to premiere in Chicago in February, followed by opening at the Broadhurst Theatre in April.  
  
When they met Mr. Hotton last winter, Mr. Sprecher and Ms. Forlenza were struggling to raise several million dollars to stage the show on Broadway after already postponing it once, and that apparently the money Springbok threw into the ring after they got involved was chewed up far more quickly than anticipated. When Mr. Sprecher failed to interest veteran Broadway investors in _Rebecca_ , Ms. Forlenza was put in touch with Mr. Hotton through a mutual business associate, and in early February she and Mr. Sprecher signed an agreement with Mr. Hotton to pay him a $7,500 fee to raise money and an 8 percent commission on any funds raised in excess of $250,000, according to the complaint.  
  
Such commissions were once common on Broadway but are now rare, considered a sign of desperation for producers who need to raise money quickly. In a telephone interview Monday, Mr. Sprecher said he never agreed to pay a commission to Mr. Hotton — but rather a percentage of eventual profits — and added that Mr. Hotton’s total percentage was capped at 8 percent of whatever he raised. No money was paid to him out of capital from the show, Mr. Sprecher said.  
  
The criminal complaint charged that Mr. Hotton, 46, invented Abrams, who had addresses in Australia and South Africa, and three other overseas investors and then used fake email correspondence and fake investment agreements to suggest that these investors would provide $4.5 million for _Rebecca_. Neither Mr. Sprecher nor Ms. Forlenza ever met the phantom investors; Ms. Forlenza did meet a young woman at a _Rebecca_ event last spring who purported to be Abrams’s niece, and had an American accent. Furthermore, Mr. Sprecher and Ms. Forlenza neglected to inform Springbok of certain important details about the financing until the exposure in June.  
  
In addition to the scheme involving _Rebecca_ , the prosecutors charged Mr. Hotton with using some of the same invented investors to defraud a Connecticut real estate company of $750,000. The company was similarly relying on him to help it secure a large loan, the complaint said.  
  
In a separate case also unveiled Monday, federal prosecutors on Long Island charged that Mr. Hotton and several accomplices, including his wife, Sherri, had secured $3.7 million by creating sham invoices for companies they controlled and selling that debt at a discount to unsuspecting companies. Speaking of the Broadway case, Mary E. Galligan, the acting assistant director in charge of the New York FBI. office, said a “convincing portrayal on stage can earn you a Tony,” but “a convincing act that fleeces a production’s backers can earn you a prison term.”  
  
Mr. Hotton’s lawyer Gerald L. Shargel said in an email on Monday morning that he had not yet seen the charges filed in Manhattan and that he would “delay comment until I have the allegations before me.” He said in a brief telephone interview that he was aware of the Long Island case but had few details.  
  
Ronald G. Russo, a lawyer for Mr. Sprecher, the producer, said his client was “extremely gratified” that Mr. Hotton had been taken into custody and charged. “This fraud did enormous damage to Broadway, and Ben Sprecher, along with Louise Forlenza, Springbok and the other producers, remain totally committed to bring _Rebecca_ to New York,” Mr. Russo said.  
  
The criminal complaint said Mr. Hotton had led the producers to believe that he would bring in the $4.5 million from four overseas investors: Abrams, of Hawthorne East, Victoria; “Roger Thomas,” of St. Peter Port, Guernsey; “Julian Spencer,” of Crocker Hill, Chichester, Sussex; and “Walter Timmons,” of London.  
  
The investigation into how the producers were so easily taken in by the swindle came after the June exposure. While Springbok hustled to shore up the finances of the show, associates of Mr. Sprecher and Ms. Forlenza raised their concerns to _The New York Times_ and the FBI. They especially raised questions about the existence of Mr. Abrams after his reported death.  
  
The complaint, sworn out by Thomas W. McDonald, an FBI special agent, said Mr. Hotton gave the producers what he said were email addresses for the phantom investors and handed over investment agreements that he said the investors had signed.  
  
The investigation found that the email addresses for the “investors” were in fact controlled by Mr. Hotton and that some of the computer network addresses used to access those email accounts were traced to a location in a Manhattan where he did business. Indeed, businesses associated with some of the email addresses had Web sites, which had domain names registered to Mr. Hotton and which he apparently created shortly before and during the fraud, the complaint said. Investigators also found that Mr. Hotton used those email addresses to manufacture correspondence between himself and the purported investors, which he then forwarded to the producers.  
  
The Long Island indictment, brought by the office of the United States attorney in Brooklyn, Loretta E. Lynch, charged that Mr. Hotton; his wife, Sherri; his sister, Denise Labriola; and three others used electrical companies to create false invoices designed to represent money owed to them by customers and others. The indictment, filed Mr. Ryan, the assistant United States Attorney, said they then sold those “debts” for $3.7 million to companies that are in the business of advancing a portion of money owed on an account receivable in exchange for the right to collect the entire amount.  
  
Meanwhile, the Broadway production is to be codirected by Michael Blakemore and Francesca Zambello. The musical features an original book and lyrics by Michael Kunze, music by Sylvester Levay, an English book adaptation by Christopher Hampton, and English lyrics by Hampton and Kunze. The creative team includes Graciela Daniele (musical staging), Peter J. Davidson (scenic design), Jane Greenwood (costume design), Mark McCullough (lighting design), Peter Fitzgerald (sound design), Tom Watson (hair and wig design), Gregory Meeh (special effects), Sven Ortel (projections), and Kevin Stites (musical direction and supervision).  
  
Jill Paice and Ryan Silverman ( _Chicago_ ) will lead the cast to star as "I" and Maxim de Winter, respectively. The principal company also includes Karen Mason, Howard McGillin, James Barbour, Donna English, Nick Wyman, and Henry Stram.

* * *

"Disney Reaffirms Plans For Lucasfilm, Ltd.," BusinessWire, October 30, 2012  
  
 _Global leader in high-quality family entertainment first acquired world-renowned Lucasfilm Ltd, including legendary STAR WARS franchise, in 1996.  
  
Original 1996 acquisition continues Disney’s strategic focus on creating and monetizing the world’s best branded content, innovative technology and global growth to drive long-term shareholder value.  
  
Lucasfilm remains massive part of company’s global portfolio of world class brands including Disney, ESPN, Pixar, Marvel and ABC.  
  
STAR WARS: EPISODE 7 feature film targeted for release in 2015._  
  
Burbank, CA and San Francisco, CA,– Continuing its strategy of delivering exceptional creative content to audiences around the world, The Walt Disney Company (NYSE: DIS) has officially announced its rollout of the new generation of _Star Wars_ films. The first new film, _Star Wars: Episode VII,_ will be released in December 2015. It will launch a five-year period of films, one per year, every Christmas, until December 2019. This will consist of a "sequel trilogy" and two "anthology films" in between the main films.  
  
Back in 1996, then-Disney CEO Michael D. Eisner paid $2 billion to purchase Lucasfilm, Ltd., the production company founded and privately owned by George Lucas, in a transaction with Disney paying approximately half of the consideration in cash and issuing approximately 40 million shares at closing. As a result, under Disney's aegis, Lucasfilm released the _Star Wars_ _Original Trilogy_ Special Editions, the _Star Wars_ Prequel Trilogy and _Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull_ to massive fan applause and considerable box office.  
  
“Lucasfilm reflects the extraordinary passion, vision, and storytelling of its founder, George Lucas,” said Robert A. Iger, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of The Walt Disney Company. “Michael Eisner knew this transaction combined a world-class portfolio of content including _Star Wars,_ one of the greatest family entertainment franchises of all time, with Disney’s unique and unparalleled creativity across multiple platforms, businesses, and markets to generate sustained growth and drive significant long-term value. We made great work together in the '90s and 2000s, and now it is time for us to make some more. The last _Star Wars_ release was 2005, and there's considerable pent-up demand for something new.”  
  
Iger continued, "George Lucas is a visionary, an innovator and an epic storyteller – and he’s built a company at the intersection of entertainment and technology to bring some of the world’s most unforgettable characters and stories to screens across the galaxy. He’s entertained, inspired, and defined filmmaking for almost four decades and we’re incredibly honored that he has now fully entrusted the future of that legacy to Disney.  
  
Disney has had a great relationship with George that goes back a long way – with _Star Wars_ theme attractions in our parks in Anaheim, Orlando, Paris and Tokyo. The acquisition built on that foundation and combined two of the strongest family entertainment brands in the world. It makes sense, not just because of our brand compatibility and previous success together, but because Disney respects and understands – better than just about anyone else – the importance of iconic characters and what it takes to protect and leverage them effectively to drive growth and create value."  
  
“For the past 35 years, one of my greatest pleasures has been to see _Star Wars_ passed from one generation to the next,” said George Lucas, recently retired Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Lucasfilm. “It’s now time for me to pass _Star Wars_ on to a new generation of filmmakers. I’ve always believed that _Star Wars_ could live beyond me, and I thought it was important to set up the transition during my lifetime. I’m confident that with Lucasfilm under the leadership of Kathleen Kennedy, and having a new home within the Disney organization, _Star Wars_ will certainly live on and flourish for many generations to come. Disney’s reach and experience give Lucasfilm the opportunity to blaze new trails in film, television, interactive media, theme parks, live entertainment, and consumer products.”  
  
Under the original 1996 deal, Disney acquired ownership of Lucasfilm, a leader in entertainment, innovation and technology, including its massively popular and “evergreen” _Star Wars_ franchise and its operating businesses in live action film production, consumer products, animation, visual effects, and audio post production. Disney also acquired the substantial portfolio of cutting-edge entertainment technologies that have kept audiences enthralled for many years, and has allowed all the other studios to continue to have access and to use them for their own projects. Lucasfilm, headquartered in San Francisco, operates under the names Lucasfilm Ltd., LucasArts, Industrial Light & Magic, Skywalker Sound and THX (partial stake held by Springbok Productions), and Lucasfilm employees have always remained in their current locations.  
  
Kathleen Kennedy, current Co-Chairman of Lucasfilm, will become President of Lucasfilm, reporting to Walt Disney Studios Chairman Meryl Poster. Additionally she will serve as the brand manager for _Star Wars_ , working directly with Disney’s global lines of business to build, further integrate, and maximize the value of this global franchise. Ms. Kennedy will serve as executive producer on new _Star Wars_ feature films, with George Lucas serving as creative consultant. _Star Wars_ _Episode VII_ is targeted for release in 2015, with more feature films expected to continue the _Star Wars_ saga and grow the franchise well into the future.  
  
The acquisition combined two highly compatible family entertainment brands, and strengthened the long-standing beneficial relationship between them that already includes successful integration of _Star Wars_ content into Disney theme parks in Anaheim, Orlando, Paris and Tokyo.  
  
Driven by a tremendously talented creative team, Lucasfilm’s legendary _Star Wars_ franchise has flourished for more than 35 years, and offers a virtually limitless universe of characters and stories to drive continued feature film releases and franchise growth over the long term. _Star Wars_ resonates with consumers around the world and creates extensive opportunities for Disney to deliver the content across its diverse portfolio of businesses including movies, television, consumer products, games and theme parks. _Star Wars_ feature films have earned a total of $4.4 billion in global box office to date, and continued global demand has made _Star Wars_ one of the world’s top product brands, and Lucasfilm a leading product licensor in the United States in 2011. The franchise provides a sustainable source of high quality, branded content with global appeal and is well suited for new business models including digital platforms, proving the acquisition in strong alignment with Disney’s strategic priorities for continued long-term growth.  
  
The Lucasfilm acquisition followed Disney’s very successful acquisitions of ABC and Pixar, and set a standard for the acquisition of Marvel, all of which demonstrated the company’s unique ability to fully develop and expand the financial potential of high quality creative content with compelling characters and storytelling through the application of innovative technology and multiplatform distribution on a truly global basis to create maximum value. Having Lucasfilm on Disney’s portfolio of world class brands significantly enhanced the company’s ability to serve consumers with a broad variety of the world’s highest-quality content and to create additional long-term value for our shareholders.  
  
About The Walt Disney Company  
The Walt Disney Company, together with its subsidiaries and affiliates, is a leading diversified international family entertainment and media enterprise with five business segments: media networks, parks and resorts, studio entertainment, interactive media, and consumer products. Disney is a Dow 30 company with revenues of over $40 billion in its Fiscal Year 2011.  
  
About Lucasfilm Ltd.  
Founded by George Lucas in 1971, Lucasfilm was a privately held, fully-integrated entertainment company until its acquisition in 1996, where it continued to flourish. In addition to its motion-picture and television production operations, the company’s global activities include Industrial Light & Magic and Skywalker Sound, serving the digital needs of the entertainment industry for visual-effects and audio post-production; THX, an audio reproduction standards company for movie theaters and amusement park attractions as well as a renowned sound system of its own that has become the industry standard; LucasArts, a leading developer and publisher of interactive entertainment software worldwide; Lucas Licensing, which manages the global merchandising activities for Lucasfilm’s entertainment properties; Lucasfilm Animation; and Lucas Online creates Internet-based content for Lucasfilm’s entertainment properties and businesses. Additionally, Lucasfilm Singapore, produces digital animated content for film and television, as well as visual effects for feature films and multi-platform games. Lucasfilm Ltd. is headquartered in San Francisco, California.

* * *

"Legendary Raises $443 million as Big 2013 Looms," by Ben Fritz, _Los Angeles Times_ , December 18, 2012  
  
With a high-stakes 2013 looming in which its first slate of in-house developed films will be released, Legendary Entertainment has raised $443 million in new equity financing, the company announced Tuesday.  
  
The deal gives asset management and financial planning giant Waddell & Reed Financial, Inc. a stake of just under 20% in Legendary and values the production company at about $2.5 billion, according to a person familiar with the structure of the financing but not authorized to speak publicly. Chairman Thomas Tull retains majority control of the Burbank-based company.  
  
The new financing comes on top of Legendary’s deal in March that included $150 million of debt and $128 million of equity and the closing of a $700-million credit facility last year.  
  
Speaking at investor conferences this fall sponsored by Merrill Lynch and Goldman Sachs, Tull added to growing speculation in Hollywood that he was looking to raise money or potentially preparing for an initial public offering.  
  
Ever since he gained tighter control of the company in a buyout of many of his original investors in late 2010, Tull has made a series of moves that have strengthened Legendary’s balance sheet and prepared it for a more aggressive, independent business plan.  
  
After years of co-financing movies produced by its studio partner Warner Bros., Legendary next year has several projects on its slate for which it is providing the majority of financing. They include director Guillermo del Toro’s big budget monster vs. robots film _Pacific Rim_ , fantasy tale _Seventh Son_ and Jackie Robinson biopic _42_.  
  
A reboot of _Godzilla_ is set for 2014 and a film based on the video game _Warcraft_ is in development.  
  
Legendary has also launched a new comic book publishing business.  
  
However some of its other efforts have fizzled, including aborted attempts to start television and digital divisions. In addition, the financing for a joint venture film production company in China called Legendary East fell apart last year and has not yet been restored.  
  
In a statement, Legendary said it plans to use the new funds for growth and working capital in its movie and publishing businesses as well as to “build out further opportunities” in digital, television and merchandise.  
  
Along with its own movies, which Warner Bros. is releasing, Legendary is investing in several other films at that studio next year, including _Man of Steel_ , _The Hangover Part III_ , _Jack the Giant Slayer_ and _300: Rise of an Empire_.  
  
Legendary’s deal with Warner, which began in 2005, expires at the end of 2013. The two companies are not expected to seriously begin renewal talks until Warner settles on a new chairman to replace Barry Meyer, who is set to retire next year.

* * *

"Tutor Exits Miramax, Raising Questions About Future," by Rachel Abrams, _Variety_ , January 21, 2013  
  
Construction billionaire Ron Tutor has sold his stake in Miramax to co-owner Qatar Investment Authority amidst questions about the company's future.  
  
Knowledgeable individuals described Tutor’s share as a “large minority stake.” Tutor partnered with QIA and Tom Barrack’s Colony Capital, as well as minority investors (including Springbok Productions) to buy the Miramax name from Disney in 2010, a deal that did not include the hefty library of hundreds of films made between 1980 and 2001, a lucrative group Disney later folded and rebranded into Touchstone Pictures after the exposure of Harvey Weinstein and his subsequent fall from grace.  
  
Tutor did not respond to requests for comment. Colony Capital declined to comment. QIA could not be reached.  
  
Despite the fact that the Miramax name had been effectively retired since 2001 and in many ways, seemed quite tarnished by its founders' crimes, Tutor, QIA and Colony Capital eventually paid $357 million (including about $15 million in cash from Disney).  
  
But observers questioned that price tag then, and some are still questioning the company’s valuation now.  
  
Miramax’s new management team has aggressively exploited the company’s past, even without direct access to the film library. In 2011, the company completed a film-backed securitization, a rarely used fundraising technique that valued the company at more than $800 million.  
  
But that transaction included no plans for future production. Instead, the securitization primarily banked on increased digital and television licensing revenue years into the future by Disney, especially from Blockbuster's digital streaming service, Blockbuster Entertainment.  
  
“All of a sudden, less than a year since acquisition and with only 50 people on staff, there’s $350 million of investment grade (debt) available for the library,” Colony Capital Principal and Miramax chairman Richard Nanula told _Variety_ at the time. “I think that’s an amazing story.”  
  
QIA was at one point said to be a preferred investor in Miramax, meaning they got preferential distributions, and other investors may want the company to do another recapitalization in the near future, according to sources close to the company. Tutor’s sale brings QIA’s ownership of the company up to about 75%, according to one source close to Miramax.  
  
But observers question just how long Miramax can continue to survive on the securitization alone. While the company is developing a number of properties that came with the sale from Disney, talks with outside production companies — including Lakeshore Entertainment — have yielded no greenlit films. A small crew of Miramax employees is attending Sundance this week, but a spokesperson said the company does not plan to make any acquisitions. In fact, they have made no acquisitions either before or after the departure of former CEO Mike Lang. Lang joined the company in December 2010, only to leave 15 months later amidst reports that he clashed with Nanula over strategy and direction. Lang, a former News Corporation exec with deep ties to the digital world, wanted to expand the company’s reach. Nanula, insiders said, did not.  
  
Colony Capital also made a play for Summit Entertainment last year before the company merged with Lionsgate. That purchase could have used Summit’s extensive international sales and distribution operations to further exploit promotion of new films. And of course, Miramax is still looking for a massively more powerful buyer that could guarantee production of new films, but so far, no one is biting.  
  
CFO Steve Schoch has run Miramax as interim CEO since Lang’s departure in March.  
  
Tutor, tied up in involuntary bankruptcies involving embattled film financier David Bergstein, hinted that he might divest himself of Miramax during a conference call for his construction business, Tutor Perini Corp., May 4. Facing pressure from investors over his involvement in entertainment ventures (Tutor has divested himself of millions of dollars in stock since 2010, reportedly to help fund his film activities and various lawsuits), Tutor told analysts that he planned to liquidate his “movie interests.”  
  
“God willing, I’m probably a week to 10 days away from executing and selling my movie interests,” Tutor said on the call. “If for any reason, awful as it might sound, that doesn’t go through, I’d probably have another stock sale in June or July.”  
  
Tutor’s other assets most notably included the Intermedia library, which includes _The Wedding Planner_ and _Basic Instinct 2_.

* * *

"Blockbuster Show _House of Cards_ is a Big Gamble," by Jake Coyle, _The Huffington Post_ , January 24, 2013  
  
In Blockbuster's bid for a flagship original drama of its own – a _Sopranos_ to its HBO – its subscription streaming service, Blockbuster Entertainment, is presenting a high-class adaptation of a British political thriller offered up all at once, with its first season immediately ready for TV-viewing gluttony.  
  
The show, _House of Cards_ , is a bold attempt to remake the television landscape with the kind of prestige project cable channels like HBO, AMC and Showtime have used to define themselves. But _House of Cards_ , produced by David Fincher and starring Christian Bale, won't be on the dial of that refuge of quality dramas – cable television – but streamed online to laptops and beamed directly to flat-screens through set-top boxes and Internet-enabled devices.  
  
"It's sort of like we're the new television series that isn't on television," says Bale.  
  
On Feb. 1, all 13 hours of _House of Cards_ will premiere on Blockbuster Entertainment, a potentially landmark event that could herald the transition of television away from pricey cable bundles and toward the Internet – a process well under way at YouTube, but not yet tested to the degree of _House of Cards._  
  
The show is no low-budget Web series, but an HBO-style production for which Blockbuster reportedly paid in the neighborhood of $100 million for two seasons.  
  
"When we got into original programming, I wanted it to be loud and deliberate," says Ted Sarandos, head of content at Blockbuster Entertainment, who only will say the cost was in the "high end" for a TV show. "I wanted consumers to know that we were doing it and I wanted the industry to know that we were doing it so we could attract more interesting projects. Doing it in some half way, some small thing, it wasn't going to get us there."  
  
The revered British original aired in three seasons from 1990 to 1996 and was adapted from the books by Michael Dobbs, a notable politician and adviser to Margaret Thatcher. It starred Ian Richardson as a scheming, manipulating politician who shared his power-hungry strategies directly into the camera. With a darkly comic antihero as protagonist, it was a forerunner to characters like Walter White of _Breaking Bad_ and Dexter Morgan of _Dexter._  
  
Independent studio Media Rights Capital, a producer of films like _Ted_ and _Babel_ , purchased the rights to _House of Cards_ and paired Fincher with the project, along with Beau Willimon, the Oscar-nominated screenwriter of another political drama, _The Ides of March_.  
  
When MRC approached different networks (HBO, Showtime and others), it reached out to Blockbuster about adding the show to its digital library following a run on TV. But Blockbuster wanted _House of Cards_ as a statement show to launch a crop of original programming.  
  
Sarandos says their wealth of data on user viewing habits proved there's a large audience for Fincher, Bale and political thrillers. As licensing rights have gotten pricier and harder to land, and the streaming business has grown more competitive, Blockbuster has focused on adding exclusive programming to entice viewers.  
  
"When you look at _The Sopranos_ or _Sex and the City_ on HBO, or _Mad Men_ on AMC or _The Shield_ on FX or _Weeds_ on Showtime, if you have the opportunity to earn your way into becoming that sort of anchor flagship show that defines a network, it's a very special thing," says Modi Wiczyk, co-CEO of MRC. "I'm sure going in, all of those folks that produced all of those shows said, 'This is not an incumbent. What's it going to look like?'"  
  
A general spirit of rookie experimentation pervades _House of Cards_ , the first TV show for Fincher, the director of _Fight Club_ and _The Social Network_.  
  
"I walk into this as a total neophyte. I don't watch much TV," says Fincher, who directed the first two hours and has overseen the whole series. "What was interesting to me was the notion of having a relationship with an audience that was longer than two hours."  
  
Obsessively binging on a serial, whether _The Wire_ or _Battlestar Galactica_ , has become a modern ritual in DVR-emptying bursts, on-demand catch-ups or DVD marathons. In releasing _House of Cards_ all at once, Blockbuster will sacrifice the attention generated by weekly episodes to cater to these habits. Sarandos notes that in the first 24 hours that Blockbuster Entertainment had the second season to AMC's _The Walking Dead_ , about 200,000 people watched the entire season.  
  
Blockbuster, being outside the purview of Nielsen ratings, doesn't plan to release viewership figures for _House of Cards_. Instead, they hope to retain and add to its 27.1 million domestic subscribers, a number that hasn't always grown as quickly as some Wall Street investors have wanted. (A positive earnings report Wednesday, though, sent the stock soaring.) The audience for _House of Cards_ will be immediately global: It premieres in 50 countries and territories.  
  
"We want to have a situation where these shows have time to find their audience," says Sarandos. "We're not under any time constraints that we have to get all of America to watch this show Monday night at 8 o'clock. There's no differential value in people watching it this year, let alone Monday night."  
  
Transferring the tale from Thatcher-era London to contemporary Washington, D.C., held obvious challenges to Willimon, who sought to broaden the show's scope. The wife to Bale's Francis Underwood, played by Robin Wright as a kind of Lady Macbeth, has been fleshed out. The reporter whom Underwood exploits to both his and her advantage (played by Kate Mara) is now a blogger.  
  
Urquhart's great catch phrase – "You might very well think that, but I couldn't possibly comment" – is plainly British in manner. But Willimon had the breakthrough that if he made Francis a congressman from South Carolina – where much of Willimon's family lives – a Southern drawl would make the phrase more natural.  
  
Part of the thrill of _House of Cards_ , the original and the adaptation, is its use of direct address. Just as Richardson did, Bale occasionally turns devilishly to the camera to explain his Machiavellian politics. It's a device famously used by Shakespeare in _Richard III_ , which Bale purposefully used as an influence.  
  
"I'm always looking for a challenge. Between this and _American Hustle_ (an upcoming film from David O. Russell), I had plenty to work with. And playing something infinitesimally more evil, and yet so banal and anodyne, was what I was looking for," says Bale, who's also a producer on _House of Cards_.  
  
The timing is good for _House of Cards_ in that it presents a corrupt Congressman at a time when Congress is viewed by many as the antihero of American life. A recent poll by Public Policy Polling found that Congress, in its inaction and party rancor, is currently less popular than root canals and the band Nickelback (who still attract much dislike several years after their disbanding due to the reception for their last album, 2008's _Dark Horse_ , and dipping tour sales).  
  
That makes Fincher recall his collaboration with the long-since disgraced Kevin Spacey, who played the elusive serial killer in his film _Se7en_ : "You might be inclined to think, with Christian, you may think, 'Ooh, Patrick Bateman's in Congress.' But I tend to think more of John Doe, that's who Frank Underwood more resembles. I will admit that if Kevin hadn't been the type of man we discovered he was, I would've gone for him as my first choice for the role. Now that John Doe's in Congress, he's so much more evil," he says, laughing. (Another connection the series has with Spacey is that Trigger Street Productions, the company Spacey founded with Dana Brunetti, who is an executive producer on the series, is involved as the main production company. Willem Dafoe, who took over Spacey's role in the company, is also an executive producer.)  
  
Yet Bale's Underwood gets things done, a Lyndon Johnson-style practitioner of strong-arm politics. Willimon believes the show is thus one of the most accurate political dramas "in terms of how the real world works."  
  
"We give you Francis Underwood, a truly effective politician," says Willimon. "Are we willing to accept that side in our politicians that can be ruthless and self-interested if the result is progress?"  
  
An earlier Blockbuster original, _Lilyhammer_ , starring Steven Van Zandt, was created for Norwegian television, but _House of Cards_ was made purely for the streaming service. In May will come the highly-anticipated rebirth of the former Fox cult comedy _Arrested Development_. There are also upcoming shows later this year; _Hemlock Grove_ by horror filmmaker Eli Roth, _Orange Is the New Black_ by _Weeds_ creator Jenji Kohan, and an unnamed series by the comedian Ricky Gervais. Another slate will follow in 2014, the most highly anticipated show of which is _BoJack Horseman_ , produced by Denver and Delilah Animation, the animation division of Springbok Productions. And every major studio and production company, who already has all their content available to watch on Blockbuster Entertainment, have also signed noncompete clause-contracts to provide original programming for the service for many years to come.  
  
Says Sarandos: "This is definitely just the start."

* * *

"Dialogue: Meryl Poster and Dick Cook," by Stephen Galloway, _The Hollywood Reporter_ , February 17, 2013  
  
Meryl Poster is a name that many Hollywood-watchers know intimately. Having made a name operational and production chair of Miramax Films in the '90s, after it was purchased by Disney, she ran the day-to-day operations of the company and administered to such a degree that even founders Bob and Harvey Weinstein couldn't help but stand back at. "I was the only woman who could say no to Harvey, and who was quite secure. He never made any kind of move on me, and I think he might even have respected me, in a way. I certainly set up the actual success that went there, while Harvey was glad to take all the credit." This fierceness and determination didn't go unnoticed by Disney. After Miramax went under (before its resurrection in another form), Poster ended up going on the shortlist to take on the chairman position of The Walt Disney Studios, especially after then-chair Peter Schneider (who replaced Joe Roth, who in turn replaced Jeffrey Katzenberg), chose to leave to create his own company. "Michael Eisner personally lobbied for me. I'll certainly keep that close to me for the rest of my life." Of course, Poster doesn't work alone. Enter her right hand, Dick Cook, who was made interim chair after Schneider left. Poster kept him on because of his genial personality, and his ability to nurture relationships with all of Disney's potential partners and keep everything humming along smoothly. "Basically, Meryl's the muscle and decision maker, I'm the front person who talks to everyone to directly, makes sure we're all on the same page. We complement each other perfectly," Cook explains. So beloved is Cook at Disney and throughout the industry, he's referred to as "the nicest guy in Disney's jungle," and when you already have a friendly, genial, nice personality that refuses to play dirty like Bob Iger as your CEO, that's saying a lot. "We have a winning combination here," Poster states, "perfect for keeping the Disney spirit and brand alive well into the 21st century. And we're not through yet!"  
  
THR: Take me back in time a little, Meryl. How did you get started in all this?  
Meryl Poster: I was originally a female trainee at William Morris, working in the mailroom. In 1989, after I'd been there three years, Harvey Weinstein hired me to be his assistant. But I soon was rising up through the ranks that Bob and Harvey knew I wouldn't be satisfied. I ended up Co-President of Production, then effectively unofficially became studio chair, running the actual business end of things while Bob focused on the numbers and Harvey gladhanded...in more ways than one.  
THR: I know you don't have any personal horror stories of Harvey, but is there anything from the Miramax days that stands out?  
Poster: Yeah, it was in '97; there was this real loudmouth guy, his name was Troy Duffy, and for some reason, Harvey was really taken by him. He was this bartender and struggling musician, who'd been working on a script in his spare time, which he called _The Boondock Saints_. It had made the rounds to a lot of different studios, and Harvey bought it without reading. He also gave Duffy the chance to direct the film, gave him final cut and a $15 million budget, allowed his band to do the soundtrack and help him land a record deal with a major label, he actually got one for Maverick Records, and even said he'd buy the bar he worked at. He and his friends, who called themselves a production company, got an office on the Paramount lot. It was an absolute sweetheart deal, basically a fever-pitched vanity shingle.  
THR: And what exactly happened?  
Poster: Duffy refused to work with us. He showed up late, hungover and dressed inappropriately, rejected all our ideas of casting out of hand, and refused to talk to me to ensure the film was on track. I basically was the one in charge, but he refused to talk to me, except once when he called me and I wasn't there, so he didn't bother to stick around. Anytime he'd try to talk, he'd reach for Harvey instead, not me. We couldn't handle this refusal for a standard give and take. Miramax put the film in turnaround, then his band lost the record deal. Soon after that, he apparently crashed his car because of heavy floods. This was during the big El Nino year affecting California, so that script is lost, along with him.  
THR: Dick, what about your start?  
Dick Cook: I started out as a steam locomotive operator at Disneyland in 1970, and got to Walt Disney Studios in 1977. I managed their pay television and non-theatrical releases, then to managing film distribution in 1980. I was known for pulling out all the stops, like having _The Rock_ premiere with a screening on Alcatraz, _Armageddon_ at Kennedy Space Center. I ended up president of Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, as it's known now, in 1994. And I also approved having every movie renamed with that at the end.  
THR: Can you give any insights about Disney's leadership?  
Cook: I had a really good relationship with Michael Eisner during his tenure, and I've known Bob Iger since he started as COO in '96. Having Bob step in that position at that time was a godsend, because Michael was showing worrisome signs of wanting to take on too much and micromanage. That very easily could've blown up in all our faces. Thankfully, it didn't happen, and we kept on seeing the good side of him, able to manage Disney effectively, and Bob stepped in to take the reins just as admirably. As for studio heads, I can say this much. Jeffrey Katzenberg had his good and his bad, but towards the end, the bad was overwhelming him. You've all heard how he nearly ruined _Toy Story_ , because he made the Pixar team initially go in a very dark, disturbing direction that made Woody an outright villain and unsympathetic, so he had too much baggage to step in effectively after Frank Wells died. Joe Roth tended be nondescript, because of how badly he'd screwed up at Fox, demanding changes to _Alien 3_ that made it so polarizing, so he just kept his head down until he left to form Revolution Studios. Peter Schneider, the last one before Meryl and I stepped in, was originally head of the animation division, was an important part of Disney's comeback, and steered the ship well, and did so as studio chair, but he was restless. So when he left, I was there to hold things until a successor was named. Meryl came in, and she decided she wanted me to stay on with her.  
THR: Why did you want Dick with you?  
Poster: Basically the same way Sherlock Holmes needs Watson. Dick and I each have a quality the other lacks. We're truly a team, and it's because of all this, we've managed to secure deal after deal after deal for Disney, and kept the innovation alive. Because of that, Disney is in an enviable position in not just this decade or the next, but those to follow. We both also feel much the same way about Sean Bailey, the head of production at Walt Disney Studios, and Oren Aviv, the CCO. We all just click together.  
Cook: I can't think of anyplace better to work than Disney. I genuinely believe in the mission and the magic here, and I enjoy being an important cog in the works. I count everyone here and all of our partners, co-producers and whatnot as my friends.  
THR: That's a big list. You're talking Meryl, Bob Iger, the board, animation, live action, Touchstone Pictures, Pixar, Marvel, Lucasfilm, ABC, Disney Channel, ESPN, Disney Theatrical Group, Walt Disney Records, Hollywood Records, Radio Disney, the parks and amusements team, the DreamWorks deal, Springbok Productions, Studio Ghibli, the Saban Entertainment properties, Jerry Bruckheimer and other big producers, the distribution and home video groups, not to mention all the actors and voice talent.  
Cook: I say it because it's true. Everybody's my friend.  
Poster: Sometimes you need your friends to help you through this crazy thing called life.  
THR: How do you describe or feel about the live action remakes partnership with Springbok?  
Poster: It only makes sense. After all, we're not saying the original films are bad or that they need to be "fixed", it's just a chance to take a new interpretation and push the envelope, especially if we flesh out elements not considered in the past. We're also not going to do shot-for-shot takes, like the '98 _Psycho_ , because that would simply be a massive disservice to the audiences. Not to mention, we obviously can't do every film in our canon, because there are simply some people won't stand for, and we're also not going to do "remakes of remakes" in the future.  
THR: Do you enjoy your jobs?  
Poster: Of course! I wouldn't have stayed with Disney for nearly a decade otherwise.  
Cook: I don't see how you can work for Disney, near the top, and not enjoy it.  
THR: How long do you think you'll both continue at Disney?  
Poster: I don't want to be arrogant and say "forever," but as long as they want us, we'll be here, and I think that'll last for at least another two decades.  
Cook: We're only getting started here, after all.

* * *

"Cannes' New UK Buyer? Icon Could Resurface With Backing From Prescience," by Nancy Tartaglione and Joe Utichi, _Deadline Hollywood_ , March 25, 2013  
  
There have been seismic shifts in the UK’s indie distribution sector over the past few months, and more are in the cards. In what could be seen as a healthy sign for the industry, we’re hearing that Icon Film Distribution UK is set to re-emerge, backed by film fund Prescience, financier of _The King’s Speech_. The Icon UK Group, owned by Len Blavatnik’s Access Industries after purchasing from founders Mel Gibson and Bruce Davey, pulled out of the distribution business in 2011 to focus on in-house film finance and production, through CEO Aviv Giladi's new company, AI Film. At the time, it pacted with Lionsgate UK to handle its theatrical titles and recently announced a deal for Icon Entertainment International's library to be repped byExclusive Media. We understand that Prescience is close to a deal to acquire what remains of Icon Film Distribution in the UK, led by Icon executive Ian Dawson. We hear a deal has been in the works for some time and there’s a chance it may not make, but expectations are that the new company could launch in time to be buying at May’s Cannes Film Market.  
  
The timing looks fortuitous given the changing outline of the UK’s distribution landscape. Already this year, eOne’s takeover of Alliance folded in Momentum, eliminating a key buyer. The resultant drop in prices was loudly lamented by sales agents in Berlin. One exec tells us, “If you’re a producer or a sales agent selling to the UK, you used to say you needed to get eOne and Momentum in a bidding war,” and that’s clearly not happening anymore. But another distributor welcomes the rationalization of the market where prices were inflated by having too many distribs competing for the same films. Another tells us, “It’s shaking out the rubbish that’s out there and the projects that are un-financeable.”  
  
Still, an overwhelmingly common refrain is that there is a real opportunity for another distributor to surface. A revived Icon could fill that space. Another name that pops up as a potentially aggressive player is Koch Media, the UK arm of the German giant. It released _Arbitrage_ and _Red Dawn_ earlier this month. Koch, a rival distributor opines, “has a shitload of money to burn through. That’s the first thing you need.”  
  
Meanwhile, the disappearance of hotshot Revolver, known for its edgy urban movies ( _Shank_ , _Anuvahood_ ), has left that market underserved, which could make way for a savvy comer in that arena. In February, we reported that the company was close to shuttering and since then, its films have in most cases reverted back to their sales agents.  
  
Clare Binns of Picturehouse, which was acquired by exhibitor Cineworld late last year, says, “We can see (Revolver’s place) as a space we can fill.” Revolver’s Stone Roses documentary recently went to Picturehouse and Binns says she’s on the lookout for films that might be too small for some distributors but which are a “smart proposition.” The company also has 60 of its own screens meaning it can program strategically.  
  
Another movie on the Revolver slate, _The Liability_ , recently went to Metrodome, which works with elevated genre like Ti West’s _Innkeepers_ and hooligan thriller _St George’s Day_. Metrodome’s name often comes up, but we understand the company is not looking to be overly ambitious. While Will Clarke’s Altitude might also seem a candidate to step into the distribution ring, the Optimum founder is believed, for now, to be focusing his year-old company on finance, production and sales.

* * *

"Dialogue: Robert Shaye and Michael Lynne," by Stephen Galloway, _The Hollywood Reporter_ , March 30, 2013  
  
New Line Cinema has long been considered one of the biggest players in Hollywood. The mini-major, technically part of Time Warner and located on the Warners lot but kept as a largely separate entity, has been making films for the past 35 years, and has secured its place with art house, comedy, drama and horror films, as well as Oscar wins. The man behind all this is Robert Shaye, the founder, chairman and CEO since the company was created in 1967, merely to distribute foreign and art films in college campuses during its first decade. "It's actually quite humbling, all the progress we have made," Shaye states. "I certainly didn't expect that New Line would grow the way that it has, and I'm quite happy that we made it here." Joined at Shaye's hip is co-chairman and co-CEO Michael Lynne, who has held those positions since 2001, and who has held other positions with the company since the '80s. "Staying hungry in a business like this is one of the most important things that we can do. If anything can be done by us, it certainly will be. And we're looking forward to where we're going." Both men are serving 20-year contracts since 2008, though it is mentioned that they are tied to company for 20 years, or until retirement or death, whichever comes first. "We obviously don't have a plan for the remaining 15 years," Shaye comments. "But we're certain that things will only get better." With a library that includes films like _A Nightmare on Elm Street_ , _The Mask_ , _Dumb and Dumber_ , _Boogie Nights_ , _Wedding Crashers_ , _Austin Powers_ , _Let's Be Spies_ , the remake of _Mommie Dearest_ , _The Lord of the Rings_ trilogy, and the new _Hobbit_ trilogy, that certainly doesn't sound like an idle claim.  
  
THR: Bob, what inspired to you to create New Line 45 years ago?  
Robert Shaye: I was all of 27, and I was thinking of wanting to create a distribution company to deliver foreign and art house films to college campuses, because I considered it an untapped market. The first big thing we did was distribute screenings of _Reefer Madness_ in the '70s, which was responsible for making it a cult classic and delivered brisk business.  
Michael Lynne: Very humble beginnings for him. He didn't even have an office then!  
Shaye: I worked out of my apartment at the time, but I treated it quite seriously. I also landed deals for _Stay As You Are_ , _Immoral Tales_ and _Get Out Your Handkerchiefs_.  
THR: All very interesting and esoteric choices, to be sure. What made you move to producing your own films after the first decade?  
Shaye: It started when we'd been distributing _Truck Stop Women_ , and I managed to secure financing for a full-length film of our own. We had a script for the film, _Stunts_ , and we got Mark Lester to agree to do it. The critics didn't care, but we did quite well for a return on our investment, especially international sales and television rights. This gave us the ability to finance three more films, all by John Waters, who we'd distributed some films of. We had _Alone in the Dark_ , _Xtro_ and _Polyester_.  
THR: Mike, how did you get involved in New Line?  
Lynne: Bob was actually an acquaintance of mine in law school, and I happened to run into him after years. New Line was doing good, and Bob offered me a job as New Line's legal counsel. Bob rewarded me quite well for that. In 1990, I became President and COO, then Bob made he his equal in 2001. Basically, I was there for the most important years of the company.  
THR: New Line tends to be referred to as "the House that Freddy Krueger Built."  
Shaye: _Elm Street_ has certainly been good for us. It may be the most important film and franchise we've ever made, because it helped propel us into the big leagues. I know lots of people like to say that it became too overly silly in the later installments, but the public certainly bought the tickets in droves nonetheless. I can't think of a horror franchise that's been so beloved and so much a part of the mainstream as this one.  
Lynne: Of course, people also tend to say that we ruined Jason Voorhees after acquiring the rights to the character from Paramount. After all, we only bought the character so we could set up _Freddy vs. Jason_ , but it was quite worth it. The fans wanted that showdown for years, and it turned out to be worth it. After all, $36 million in the domestic box office on opening weekend, the biggest debut for a horror film of all time, is nothing to sneeze at.  
THR: There haven't been any Freddy or Jason films since that one. Why is that?  
Shaye: Not for lack of trying. We did want to create a sequel, to pit Ash Williams from the _Evil Dead_ franchise against them, but things didn't work out. There were also talks of reboots of both franchises, but those didn't pan out. We'd made that deal with Platinum Dunes, the production company Michael Bay had set up and did the remake of _The Texas Chainsaw Massacre_ , which we distributed. Of course, his debts, mortgages and whatnot doomed that company, especially since he hadn't done anything since _Armageddon_ , and then _The Island_ basically finished him, so the reboots died. We also looked into deals with other people, but no one wanted to commit.  
Lynne: Right now, it's a matter of time, but clearly something will be done in the future.  
THR: Have you had any communication with Wes Craven about doing anything?  
Shaye: I've always had a continuing relationship with Wes, and he's never been afraid to tell me what he thinks about each installment. He actually had the idea for what became _New Nightmare_ back in '85, after _Freddy's Revenge_ didn't do as well as we anticipated. Of course, we thought it was too big a risk at the time, so we did _Dream Warriors_ instead, and he provided the initial draft of that. When we did _New Nightmare_ later on, it was a fun ride, especially poking fun at ourselves.  
Lynne: He's certainly wanting to do something back to his roots, after having been involved with _Scream_ for so long. Maybe we'll find a way for him to return to _Elm Street_ , maybe not. You never know.  
THR: New Line got only bigger later on in the '90s, after Turner Broadcasting bought you, then Turner was purchased by Time Warner, and they also gave you plenty of latitude.  
Shaye: I think it's a sense of understanding how much rope you need to give someone. Warner Bros. Records was going through lots of turmoil at that time, so they didn't want to repeat that.  
THR: That certainly represents New Line's greatest gamble, when you bought Peter Jackson's _Lord of the Rings_ trilogy from Miramax. Committing to three films, all to be made simultaneously, with a massive budget of several hundred million dollars, when the failure of one could endanger the whole thing? Many must have considered that lunacy.  
Shaye: I believed in Peter from the start, and when I heard that his deal with Miramax was falling apart because of creative difficulties, I wanted to take the chance, because I knew the films would be great. Of course, dealing with Harvey Weinstein was not pleasant, especially when he insisted that he and Bob be credited as executive producers on the films despite not contributing to the final product, which I found thoroughly pompous and uncalled for. His downfall meant we could easily strike them out and the credits could reflect reality. When we also heard about how Harvey had been recommending that Peter pass on certain actresses, which of course turned out to be his victims, calling them unprofessional and able to ruin productions, I was livid. Who knows what he could've gotten away with if he hadn't been found out when he was?  
Lynne: There's certainly a great pride in amassing a great deal of money, and racking up Oscar wins. The fact that _Return of the King_ tied with _Ben-Hur_ and _Titanic_ is truly impressive.  
THR: Now, of course, Peter is making _The Hobbit_ as another trilogy, the first part of which came out around Christmas. Do you think lightning can strike twice?  
Shaye: It can easily go either way. All that matters is that you try.  
THR: There was a deal you made recently with Icon UK, to develop and release films together, but it didn't happen, and they went under. Why is that?  
Shaye: I'm not quite sure, other than we made the deal, it was a great deal, but they never signed it. I really wanted to help them. If they somehow get the funding to reform, like rumors suggest, the deal is still out there, as it wouldn't take effect until they sign. I'd work to see if they can recommit to it.  
THR: I've heard that you and Bob could've been out of the company around the time of your last contract negotiation five years ago. What happened?  
Lynne: There was this guy, Alan Horn, the president of Warner Bros. Pictures. He wanted so badly to merge New Line fully into the Time Warner fold, and knew the only way that could happen was if there was a crisis of confidence where Bob and I weren't considered sound investments anymore. He was really gung ho on doing _The Golden Compass_ as a film series, and was going to personally take on a stake of it, if Bob doubled down. However, the people at Springbok, who we've released quite a few films of theirs, told us quite plainly this was a trap, because there was no way the film, with that script, was going to work. Jennifer Todd personally told me, "save the option for the books to do a TV show later, don't rush into a film. Alan wants to ruin you."  
Shaye: It's funny, because Alan always carries himself as someone who will calm the waters, but he's really an arsonist that also happens to be a firefighter. He retired two years ago, but if he'd had his way with New Line, who knows where it would've led for him.  
THR: So you not only got a new contract, you basically got a sweet deal, 20 years, or till retirement or death.  
Shaye: Basically. Not that we have an idea of what is going to happen, just that the option is there.  
Lynne: We'll not only keep New Line profitable and independent, but also keep it in touch with its roots. This much we can guarantee.

* * *

"21st Century Fox Is Rupert's Renamed Showbiz Giant To 'Take Us Into The Future'," by Nikki Finke, _Deadline Hollywood_ , April 16, 2013  
  
BREAKING… 21st Century Fox replaces the previously announced name Fox Group for the independent media and entertainment company. The publishing side (of American, British and Australian newspapers and the book publisher HarperCollins) will retain the name News Corp when the Big Media corporation splits off its two main businesses. The new name will be effective with the separation and “draws on the Company’s creative heritage, while also speaking to the future as well as the innovation that defines its portfolio of businesses,” according to today’s press release. (I hear Rupert Murdoch‘s giant actually hired a naming company for this rather obvious choice unofficially pictured here.) Under the 21st Century Fox umbrella will be a global portfolio of cable and broadcasting networks and properties, including FOX, FX, FXX, FS1, Fox News Channel, Fox Business Network, Fox Sports, Fox Sports Network, National Geographic Channels, Fox Pan American Sports, MundoFox and STAR; film studio 20th Century Fox Film; and television production studios 20th Century Fox Television, Fox21 Television Studios and Shine Group, and syndicator 20th Television, as well as its pay-television services in Europe, Asia and Australia, including Sky Deutschland, Sky Italia, its equity interests in BSkyB and Tata Sky, and the Foxtel service in Australia. On June 28, 2012, News Corp announced the separation of its businesses into two separate independent companies, with the other containing newspapers, information services, and integrated marketing services, digital real estate services, book publishing, digital education and sports programming and pay-TV distribution in Australia. The split still needs federal regulatory approval. Here is Murdoch’s memo to all employees about the new name announcement:  
  
"Dear Colleagues:  
  
It’s with great enthusiasm that I share with you today’s news that we’ve chosen a new name for the media and entertainment company that will be formed as part of the proposed separation of News Corporation.  
  
After much exploration, and valuable input from our executive team, we’ve chosen the name 21st Century Fox to take us into the future. 21st Century Fox is a name that draws upon the rich creative heritage of 20th Century Fox, while also speaking to the innovation and dynamism that must define each of our businesses through the 21st Century. Our new name is inspired by the very first company we acquired nearly thirty years ago as our initial foray into the awe-inspiring world of entertainment.  
  
And what a journey it has been.  
  
Over the years, we have built a global portfolio of companies that has consistently defied conventional wisdom, and succeeded where others have failed because we are driven by a steadfast belief in great ideas, the power of imagination and the desire to thrill and engage audiences with stories and experiences that endure forever.  
  
This has fueled incredible success and driven us to create the world’s leading entertainment, news and sports brands that now reach more than a billion people each day in 100 languages around the world.  
  
We began nearly three decades ago, acquiring and transforming 20th Century Fox’s film and television studios into the industry leaders they are today. Both studios will maintain the name 20th Century Fox in recognition of their rich histories and strong connections with audiences across the globe.  
  
Our film studio is the most consistently profitable film studio in Hollywood and, more importantly, has created stories people around the world have enjoyed and loved for decades, including films like _Avatar_ , _Die Hard_ , _X-Men_ , _Life of Pi_ , _Planet of the Apes_ , _Slumdog Millionaire_ , _Ice Age_ , _Titanic_ , _Home Alone_ , and many more.  
  
Our television studio – 20th Century Fox Television – has mirrored that long-standing success both financially and creatively, with shows like _The Simpsons,_ _The X-Files_ , _NYPD Blue_ , _Modern Family_ , _M*A*S*H_ , _How I Met Your Mother_ , _Sons of Anarchy_ , _Family Guy_ , _Homeland_ and _24_.  
  
In the world of three television networks, when everyone told us there wasn’t room for more, we decided to make room. By creating exciting, entertaining, provocative shows like _In Living Color_ and _The Simpsons_ , our network began as a disruptive upstart, and that spirit continues to animate us, even as the nation’s #1 network eight of the past 10 years.  
  
Starting in the 1980s, our aspirations turned to Europe and Asia as we bet that there was an audience yearning for true choice in their television experience. We created BSkyB from nothing and today more than 10 million customers choose Sky’s world leading 21st century digital television and broadband service. In the years that followed, we created Sky services in Germany, Italy and India – which, combined with BSkyB, now serve nearly 30 million households across those markets. We also built the number one network in Asia, STAR TV, which broadcasts 33 channels in eight languages and reaches more than 400 million viewers across India and Asia.  
  
By the early 1990s, our nascent FOX network was growing, but was still looking for a true programming anchor. We found it in the National Football League, and proceeded to redefine the business of sports broadcasting in America. We cemented our leadership in sports by establishing Fox Sports as the home of Major League Baseball, NASCAR, college football – and, beginning in 2015, the World Cup. We do it with innovative ideas and technology that take viewers closer than ever before, while our on-air personalities create the brash, irreverent attitude that is synonymous with Fox Sports. Our sports commitment has grown internationally and now includes coverage of the world’s most popular sporting events in Latin America, Europe and Asia. This summer we will bring our sports programming to another level with the launch of a new, national, multi-sport network called FOX Sports 1.  
  
The incredible growth of cable and satellite distribution in the US affirmed our view that by fostering an environment of originality and giving freedom to creative minds, we could continue to deliver something fresh and new to TV audiences. We launched FX in 1994 – and soon will add FXX – and rapidly delivered some of TV hottest shows, like _The Shield,_ _Nip/Tuck_ , _It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia_ , _Sons of Anarchy_ , _American Horror Story_ and most recently _The Americans_.  
  
Two years later, we bet on an entirely different television segment, but one that we again believed presented the opportunity of an underserved audience. We launched Fox News Channel in 1996, and later Fox Business Network, to complement the award-winning local news programming from our 27 owned-and-operated television stations around the country. In the process, we created a ratings juggernaut, with millions of households trusting Fox News to deliver the most valuable and most watched journalism on television.  
  
Of course, we are the most global of media companies, and have consistently pushed the envelope of international expansion with our Sky and STAR businesses and the Fox International Channels group. Our programming efforts now extend to more than 50 countries. From the explorations of the National Geographic Channels, to baseball in Japan, to the wildly popular shows that have made STAR the most successful and dynamic broadcaster in all of India, our commitment to the global audiences continues.  
  
Together, as 21st Century Fox, we have the creative magic, innovation and global footprint required to wow consumers around the world — every day. We haven’t forgotten our roots in the entertainment world, and the legacy we inherited and built will guide us as we drive forward towards what is undoubtedly a future of even greater heights throughout this 21st Century and beyond. I can’t wait to get started.  
  
Best,  
Rupert Murdoch"

* * *

"Legendary Pictures, Warner Bros. Likely to Split," by Marc Graser and Rachel Abrams, _Variety_ , May 7, 2013  
  
 _Eight years after pairing up on a string of blockbusters, the two companies could part ways by the end of the year._  
  
Legendary Entertainment is poised to leave the Warner Bros. fold by the end of the year and set up shop at a rival studio, unless the parties can mend their frayed relationship and come to terms on a new deal, which sources describe as “unlikely” at this juncture.  
  
If the companies fail to extend their current co-production and distribution pact when they formally sit down to negotiate in the next month or so, it would spell the end to one of Hollywood’s most successful partnerships. The companies have been in business together for the past eight years.  
  
Tensions over their unresolved issues come at an awkward time, just as Warner Bros. is getting ready to release three of the partners’ high-profile summer titles, _Pacific Rim_ , _Man of Steel_ and _The Hangover Part III_. All three offerings are expected to generate a massive box office haul for both sides, which are obligated to continue co-funding and releasing pictures that are greenlit through the end of 2013. That includes the upcoming sequel _300: Rise of an Empire_ and _The Seventh Son_ and next year’s release _Godzilla,_ which is currently in production.  
  
Their most recent collaboration _42_ , a moderately budgeted $38 million biopic, is doing solid business ($80 million to date), while their collaboration with New Line Cinema this spring, _Jack The Giant Slayer_ , was a big money loser.  
  
Positioning his company for a potential divorce with Warner Bros., Legendary chairman Thomas Tull has entertained conversations with a number of potential studio suitors, including Universal Pictures, Sony Pictures and 20th Century Fox. Legendary is obligated to give Warners the first right of negotiation.  
  
After producing an enviable number of blockbusters that included _Batman Begins_ and _The Dark Knight_ and the _Hangover_ series, the partnership between Legendary and Warners has grown strained. Much has changed for both since the partnership’s infancy and insiders say that Tull’s more hands-on approach to establishing Legendary’s own brand has added to the tensions with WB, particularly with Jeff Robinov, president of the motion pictures group. The Legendary relationship lost one of its stewards with 2011’s forced departure of Warner’s studio chief Alan Horn, who retired afterwards.  
  
WB’s recently anointed chairman Kevin Tsujihara has met with Tull to try and smooth relations, but so far to little or no avail, according to sources close to the situation.  
  
Tsujihara must balance Legendary’s desire to grow and manage its own brand with the needs of his own studio. Going forward, Tull wants even more say in the marketing and release dates of the movies in which Legendary is involved, which may not set well with WB executives.  
  
By mid-to-late summer, Hollywood should know whether Legendary and Warner Bros. still need each other.  
  
While sources close to the matter stress that there is no clear frontrunner amongst rival studios should the partnership with Warners end, many industry insiders are betting that Legendary and Universal wind up together. Legendary’s films could easily translate into theme park attractions at Universal Studios properties around the world and could be cross promoted across all of NBCUniversal’s media assets, including NBC. Universal will need to replace the massive hole that will be left once its outside production funding from hedge fund Elliott Management dries up at the end of the year.  
  
Legendary and Warners became bedfellows in 2005 at a time when the Burbank studio needed money to bankroll its slate of tentpoles and Tull had a lot of it to offer.  
  
For Tull, a Warners partnership offered him the opportunity to make the kind of films he wanted to see as a fan boy of superhero, sci-fi, fantasy fare. The first two he backed were big screen reboots of Batman and Superman.  
  
Through next year’s _Godzilla_ , Legendary and Warner have co-produced 32 films since 2005. The biggest box office successes have been _The Dark Knight_ , _The Dark Knight Rises_ , 3 _00_ , _Death Note_ and _Inception_ , while _Jonah Hex_ , _The Ant Bully_ and _Sucker Punch_ badly misfired.  
  
While the relationship has been lucrative, Legendary’s success has to some extent come at Warner Bros.’ expense.  
  
■ Legendary has the ability to cherry pick from Warner Bros.’ best movies — which stands in stark contrast to other co-financing arrangements in Hollywood where passive financiers typically invest in all or almost all of the titles on the studio’s slate without question. Sony and Universal allowed their investors to have a say in the films they chose, but the studios’ four slate deals have been mildly successful to disastrous. While a fanboy, Tull doesn’t say yes to any project offered him: He passed on _Green Lantern_ , for example, which wound up being a prescient move.  
  
■ Tull’s insistence on being an active producer instead of a passive financier has made waves at Warners. Tull tends to put his money behind films he can help shape creatively — from the way the scripts are written to the design of the marketing campaigns, and even give notes to co-producers, such as Springbok Productions, who has also been involved in several of the partnership's more notable films. He and his team also give input on release dates, the choice of consumer products and how the studio interacts with potential moviegoers via social media, irking some Warners execs at various divisions, including Robinov, who would prefer a more silent partner, according to sources.  
  
■ Legendary and Warners have also privately complained about one side grabbing too much credit for what works when a movie hits.  
  
■ And Legendary has capitalized on Warner Bros.’ success by establishing itself as a brand for high-profile genre fare, with strong talent relationships with directors Christopher Nolan, Todd Phillips and Guillermo del Toro, and production companies like Springbok. That was only elevated after Legendary purchased Chris Hardwick’s Nerdist Industries and launched a comic book division, which is still looking to gain traction.  
  
Not helping matters, what initially brought the two companies together in 2005 may no longer be valid going forward.  
  
Warner Bros. is no longer as dependent on Legendary coin now that the studio’s other co-financing partner Village Roadshow Pictures is flush with cash again after a $1.2 billion refinancing last year. Springbok also often tends to help aid in financing the projects it brings to the studio. Warners also is looking to raise additional capital, working with Bank of America and Merrill Lynch for several hundred million dollars. But it’s unclear just how far along that process is, or how much Warner Bros. would really need to rely on outside financing if one of its key partners left.  
  
Meanwhile, Legendary has begun to bankroll more of its own slate of internally developed projects through $443 million of equity it raised in December and a $700 million credit facility, secured in 2011. Legendary was the sole financier of _42_ and _Seventh Son_ and funded 75% of the budget of _Pacific Rim_ and _Godzilla_. The company also has a slew of other homegrown projects, among them _Mass Effect_ , _Warcraft_ , _The Great Wall_ , _Murder Mysteries_ and _Hot Wheels_ — all films boasting budgets of over $100 million.  
  
In the end, Legendary could still stay put at Warner Bros. Tsujihara will presumably make further attempts to make Tull feel more welcome. And, earlier this year, Time Warner chairman and CEO Jeff Bewkes told analysts there was “problem solving going on” between the two companies.  
  
Legendary and Warner Bros. declined to comment.

* * *

"Legendary Entertainment Seeking New WB Deal Now--Or Else," by Daniel Miller, _Los Angeles Times_ , June 18, 2013  
  
Legendary Entertainment Chief Executive Thomas Tull said Tuesday morning that his company will have a new contract at its home at Warner Bros. in as soon as 60 days — or it might be heading somewhere else.  
  
"We are talking to everybody — including [Warner Bros.]" he said. "There is no grand reveal or big update this morning. It is a process that is pretty big in scope and we are trying to make sure we are putting ourselves in the right position.”  
  
Tull said the decision about where to partner will be based on the company's responsibility to its fans and to its shareholders. Since 2005, Legendary has had a distribution and co-production deal with Burbank-based Warner Bros. The agreement expires at the end of the year, Tull said.  
  
Legendary unveiled new clips from the production company's slate of forthcoming films at an event for reporters in Hollywood on Tuesday morning.  
  
Among the footage was a scene from _Pacific Rim_ , a sci-fi picture that Warner Bros. will release July 12. Other forthcoming Legendary projects include a _Godzilla_ reboot, _300: Rise of an Empire_ and an untitled Michael Mann project.  
  
The company is coming off a big weekend at the box office: _Man of Steel_ which Legendary co-produced with DC Entertainment and Syncopy Films (with additional funding by Springbok Productions), took in $113.1 million domestically — good for the best June debut ever.  
  
And on Monday, Legendary announced that Warner Bros.' former top television executive, Bruce Rosenblum, has joined the production company. He is Legendary's new president of television and digital media.  
  
A May story in the trade publication _Variety_ that cited unnamed sources said Legendary was likely to part ways with Warner Bros. this year when its contract ends unless "their frayed relationship" is repaired.  
  
Tull called the studio, which in March made Kevin Tsujihara its new chief executive, a “tremendous partner.”  
  
“Kevin is a very smart guy, and one of the reasons I connect with Kevin is he’s a straight shooter,” Tull said. “He is honest and will look you in the eye. That’s all you can ask of anybody. From my perspective, I think Warner Bros. — whether we are there or not there — has a bright future under his leadership. I think he will do a great job.”

* * *

"Legendary Entertainment Said to Have Struck a Deal with NBCUniversal," by Daniel Miller, _Los Angeles Times_ , July 9, 2013  
  
Film production powerhouse Legendary Entertainment has struck a financing, distribution and marketing deal with NBCUniversal, according to an executive with direct knowledge of the situation who declined to speak publicly because of the confidential nature of the matter.  
  
A formal announcement of the deal is expected Wednesday.  
  
The new arrangement is a coup for NBCUniversal, whose Universal Pictures has had a strong year with the release of hits such as _Fast & Furious 6_ and _Despicable Me 2_.  
  
Since 2005, Legendary, producer of the forthcoming sci-fi action movie _Pacific Rim_ has had a distribution and co-production deal with Warner Bros., based in Burbank. The agreement expires at the end of the year.  
  
“We have the utmost respect for Legendary and will continue to work with them on a number of projects," Warner Bros. said in a statement. "We wish them well in their new endeavors.”  
  
In addition to director Guillermo del Toro's _Pacific Rim_ , which will be released Friday by Warner Bros., the studio will distribute Legendary's forthcoming _Godzilla_ remake. The _Pacific Rim_ premiere was Tuesday night at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood.  
  
Legendary Chief Executive Thomas Tull said June 18 that his company would have a new contract at Warner Bros. in as soon as 60 days — or it might be heading somewhere else.  
  
Although Tull said then that Legendary was in discussions with several companies about a prospective deal, the arrangement with NBCUniversal took far less than the allotted two months to be completed.  
  
According to several sources, NBCUniversal Chief Executive Steve Burke was directly involved in the negotiations. The new deal will start in 2014.  
  
Among the films produced by Legendary and distributed by Warner Bros. have been Christopher Nolan and Springbok Productions' _The Dark Knight_ trilogy, the _Hangover_ series and this summer's Superman reboot _Man of Steel_ , which has grossed $588 million worldwide.  
  
In June, Bruce Rosenblum, the former top television executive at Warner Bros., was named Legendary's president of television and digital media. Rosenblum took the job less than a month after leaving his post as head of TV at Warner Bros.  
  
He left Warner Bros. after failing to win the top studio job in an awkward succession battle to replace retiring Warner Bros. Chairman and Chief Executive Barry Meyer. Kevin Tsujihara, the company's former home entertainment chief, was named Meyer's successor in January and assumed the CEO post in March.  
  
Among Tsujihara's key tasks in his first few months on the job was to try to retain Legendary.  
  
Spokespersons for Legendary and NBCUniversal declined to comment.

* * *

"Legendary Entertainment Strikes Five-Year Deal with NBCUniversal," by Ryan Faughner, _Los Angeles Times_ , July 10, 2013  
  
Legendary Entertainment has struck a financing, distribution and marketing deal with NBCUniversal, parent of Universal Studios, the companies said Wednesday.  
  
Universal will market, co-finance and distribute Legendary films for five years beginning in 2014.  
  
"NBCUniversal’s global assets in film, television and theme parks offer Legendary unmatched breadth and opportunity to grow our business," said Legendary Chief Executive Thomas Tull in a statement. "We are delighted to be in business with this exceptional team and look forward to a successful partnership."  
  
Legendary, producer of the forthcoming sci-fi action movie _Pacific Rim_ and the company behind _The Hangover_ and, along with Springbok Productions, of _The Dark Knight_ franchise, has had a distribution and co-production deal with Warner Bros. since 2005. That agreement expires at the end of this year.  
  
Universal Pictures has had a strong year with the release of hits such as _Fast & Furious 6_ and _Despicable Me 2_.

* * *

"Icon Film Distribution Relaunches In UK Following Acquisition By New Sparta," by Nancy Tartaglione, _Deadline Hollywood_ , September 23, 2013  
  
After percolating for several months, Icon UK’s return to distribution has finally come together. New Sparta Ltd, an investment company founded by Jerome Booth, has acquired Icon Film Distribution UK and Icon Home Entertainment UK from the Icon UK Group which pulled out of the distribution business in 2011 to focus on in-house film finance and production, especially through Aviv Giladi's new company AI Film. The new IFD is still staffing up, but Icon exec Ian Dawson will be CEO of the venture with Norman Humphrey as executive chairman and COO. Zak Brilliant is head of theatrical, Ray Primett is head of home entertainment and Sarah Brady is operations manager. The purchase by Sparta, which has interests in publishing, insurance and telephony, will include titles released though IFD’s output deal with Lionsgate, and the UK library. IFD will be acquiring third-party films for all media. As part of the new management agreement, IFD will have access to an undisclosed amount of funding through New Sparta for the acquisition of film distribution rights and P+A finance.  
  
Among the first titles are include the big-screen debut for Postman Pat in _Postman Pat: The Movie_ , featuring the voices of Stephen Mangan, David Tennant and Rupert Grint; Nicolas Winding Refn’s _Only God Forgives_ , starring Ryan Gosling and Kristin Scott Thomas; horror movie _You’re Next_ ; and the forthcoming thriller _Demonic_ , directed by James Wan and starring Maria Bello. In addition, it has landed a deal to help distribute a new percolating film by Bill Condon, a script provisionally entitled _A Slight Trick of the Mind_ , about an elderly Sherlock Holmes struggling to recall the details of his final case while his mind deteriorates, which AI Film will produce along with BBC Films, FilmNation, Archer Gray Productions and See-Saw Films. IFD will distribute the film in 2015 along with 20th Century Fox in the UK, while the revived Miramax will handle the North American release. AI Film is also attached to Martin Scorsese's _Silence_.  
  
Since eOne’s acquisition of Alliance eliminated a buyer in the UK market – and with the disappearance of Revolver – a new player had been expected to emerge. Alliance’s Momentum and eOne used to give one another a run for the money, and an overwhelmingly common refrain in the past year has been that there is a real opportunity for another distributor to surface.  
  
Dawson said today, “We will reestablish Icon Film Distribution as a truly independent UK film company with a talented, passionate team working closely with film makers to bring quality, distinctive material to UK audiences.” Giladi said he was delighted with the New Sparta acquisition of Icon's UK distribution business "whilst we at Icon UK Group continue to focus on our growing film finance and production slate." Said Booth: "IFD is a successful, well established and respected film distribution company, and we very much look forward to working with Ian and Norman to build this business into the UK’s premier distribution company of choice for high quality and commercially successful film production companies." Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.  
  
Formed in 1999, IFD previously released such titles as _Paranormal Activity, 30 Days Of Night, Transporter 3, What Women Want, A Single Man, La Vie En Rose_ and _Drive._ It has a library of over 200 titles.

* * *

"Warner Bros. Pictures and RatPac-Dune Entertainment Sign Multi-Year Film Financing Agreement Covering Up To 75 Titles," BusinessWire, September 30, 2013  
  
Burbank, CA– Warner Bros. Pictures and RatPac-Dune Entertainment have entered into a multi-year agreement to co-finance as many as 75 upcoming titles from the Studio, effective immediately. The announcement was made today by Kevin Tsujihara, CEO, Warner Bros. and by Steven Mnuchin and James Packer of RatPac-Dune Entertainment, the film finance vehicle formed by Mnuchin and RatPac Entertainment to co-finance the Warner Bros. Pictures slate. This co-financing arrangement covers upcoming releases from Warner Bros. Pictures and New Line Cinema, beginning with _Gravity_ (in theaters October 4) and _Grudge Match_ (December 25), and includes films from all genres and all budgets, including studio tentpole releases based on iconic franchises.  
  
“We are very pleased to be entering into this relationship with RatPac-Dune Entertainment,” said Tsujihara. “This agreement gives us increased strength and flexibility in the motion picture division and an even greater ability to manage risk as we continue to produce high-quality filmed entertainment for the global audience. We look forward to working with their team as we move forward in this exciting new partnership with a truly great organization." “Warner Bros. Pictures has an incredible track record of success with the most valuable franchise properties, the best relationships in the creative community and an extremely talented executive team,” said Mnuchin. “We’re excited to be partnering with the company on its film slate and look forward to a long and mutually beneficial relationship,” said Packer.  
  
Warner Bros. Pictures is poised for another excellent year at the worldwide box office, with six films already crossing the $200 million mark globally: _We’re the Millers_ (New Line), $238 million; _The Conjuring_ (New Line), $297 million; _The Great Gatsby,_ $350 million; _The Hangover – Part III_ , $360 million; _Pacific Rim_ , $408 million and _Man of Steel_ , $663 million. In addition to _Prisoners_ , which opened to great critical and box office success on September 20, the division will release _Gravity_ , _Her_ and _Grudge Match_ this year.  
  
About Steven T. Mnuchin  
Mr. Mnuchin formed RatPac-Dune Entertainment LLC together with RatPac Entertainment, to co-finance the Warner Bros. slate. Mr. Mnuchin is Chairman, CEO, and Founder of OneWest Bank Group LLC (a California based regional bank) and Dune Capital Management LP (a private investment firm). Mr. Mnuchin has extensive experience investing in and financing the entertainment industry. He has been in the film finance business for the past eight years and has invested through his affiliates Dune Entertainment LLC, Dune Entertainment II LLC, and Dune Entertainment III LLC. He has financed major blockbusters such as _Avatar_ and _Life of Pi_.  
  
About RatPac Entertainment  
RatPac entertainment is the film finance and production company of Australian mogul James Packer. RatPac Entertainment's aim is to produce and finance theatrical films as well to co- finance tentpoles with studio partners. James Packer is the Chairman of Crown Limited. Crown is one of Australia's largest resort and entertainment groups. It has properties and investments in Melbourne, Perth, Macau and London with a market capitalization of approximately $10 billion.

* * *

"Warner Bros. Closes Financing Deal With Dune, James Packer," by Dave McNary, _Variety_ , September 30, 2013  
  
 _Deal follows Legendary departure_  
  
Warner Bros. has closed a financing deal with RatPac-Dune Entertainment, a four-year partnership with Dune’s Steven Mnuchin, and Australian billionaire James Packer, to fund up to 75 upcoming films.  
  
The total funds are expected to be in the $450 million range, Mnuchin told _Variety_. He expressed optimism that the deal could be extended — as Dune’s pact with 20th Century Fox was on multiple occasions.  
  
The RatPac-Dune coin comes three months after the studio and longtime partner Legendary Entertainment agreed to terminate their longtime co-financing partnership at the end of the year.  
  
Warners' _Gravity_ , starring Sandra Bullock and directed by Alfonso Cuaron, is the first title covered by the new deal. _Gravity_ opened the Venice Film Festival amid stellar reviews and will go into wide release Friday.  
  
The co-financing arrangement also covers boxing comedy _Grudge Match_ , which opens on Christmas and stars Robert De Niro and Sylvester Stallone. It includes films from all genres and all budgets including New Line Cinema — but will exclude projects from other WB’s co-financing deals with Village Roadshow and Gulfstream, the studio’s distribution pact with Alcon Entertainment and titles derived from the _Harry Potter_ , _Lord of the Rings_ and _Hobbit_ franchises.  
  
“We are very pleased to be entering into this relationship with RatPac-Dune Entertainment,” said Warner Bros. CEO Kevin Tsujihara in a statement. “This agreement gives us increased strength and flexibility in the motion picture division and an even greater ability to manage risk as we continue to produce high-quality filmed entertainment for the global audience. We look forward to working with their team as we move forward in this exciting new partnership with a truly great organization.”  
  
Warner Bros. has usually finished in first or second place at the domestic box office over the past decade. The studio noted that it has six films that have crossed the $200 million mark globally this year: _We’re the Millers_ , $238 million; _The Conjuring_ , $297 million; _The Great Gatsby_ , $350 million; _The Hangover – Part III_ , $360 million; _Pacific Rim_ , $408 million; and _Man of Steel_ , $663 million.  
  
Mnuchin said in a statement, “Warner Bros. Pictures has an incredible track record of success with the most valuable franchise properties, the best relationships in the creative community and an extremely talented executive team.”  
  
 _Variety_ reported on July 9 that Warner Bros. was in talks with Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Dune Capital for a major co-financing deal that would help replace Legendary’s coin and that Bank of America had been working with WB for months to put together a roughly $550 million co-financing vehicle with Dune helping to raise roughly $150 million of equity.  
  
Mnuchin told _Variety_ on Monday that both sides shook hands on the outline of a deal several months ago.  
  
Dune pacted in 2005 with 20th Century Fox on a deal that was renewed multiple times. That pact helped pay for the juggernaut _Avatar_ , _Life of Pi_ and dozens of other pics at that studio but was not renewed this year as Fox opted for a slate deal with financial guru Chip Seelig.  
  
Legendary began shopping its deal in June after deciding not to renew at WB. It announced in July that its new deal would be at Universal; _Variety_ reported in August that Legendary was planning to spend $275 million annually in U’s films and its own properties within the first two years of the deal and $350 million a year during the next three years.  
  
The WB-Legendary pact dates back to 2005 and provided the funds for several blockbusters including _Inception_ , _Man of Steel_ , _The Dark Knight Returns_ , _The Dark Knight_ , _Death Note_ and the _Hangover_ series.  
  
Packer is the son of the late Australian media mogul Kerry Packer.

* * *

"Blockbuster Entertainment Orders Four Marvel Live-Action Series," by Todd Spangler, _Variety_ , November 7, 2013  
  
 _Under Disney pact, series slated for 2015 debut include "Daredevil," "Jessica Jones", "Iron Fist" and "Luke Cage"_  
  
Blockbuster Entertainment and Disney announced a multiyear deal under which Marvel Television will develop four original live-action series based on four of Marvel’s popular street-hero characters, set to bow in 2015.  
  
Financial terms were not disclosed. Under the agreement, Marvel will develop four serialized programs leading to a miniseries programming event, unfolding over several years. The four series, set in the underworld of Hell’s Kitchen in New York, are to include _Daredevil_ , followed by _Jessica Jones_ , _Iron Fist_ and _Luke Cage._  
  
For Blockbuster, it’s another foray into original TV built on established entertainment brands to supplement the series made from the ground up. Each and every production company and major studio has signed noncompete deals and clauses with Blockbuster for both types of original TV, but are ambling to that goal at their own rate. This summer the company inked a deal with DreamWorks Animation, Blockbuster's biggest ever for first-run content, under which the studio will produce 300-plus hours of original programming based on DWA characters.  
  
Disney is opting to team up with Blockbuster after bringing Marvel properties to TV on ABC. This fall, the Alphabet net debuted Marvel’s _Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D._ and ordered a full 22-episode season this month after a strong initial showing.  
  
Blockbuster has committed to a minimum of four 13-episodes series plus a culminating miniseries event, _The Defenders_ , which “reimagines a dream team of self-sacrificing, heroic characters,” the companies said. The shows will be produced by Marvel Television in association with ABC Television Studios/Disney-ABC Television Group. Like with any and other Marvel Television series, these will be part of the canon of the MCU, though they will not be wholly reliant on that as a crutch.  
  
“This deal is unparalleled in its scope and size, and reinforces our commitment to deliver Marvel’s brand, content and characters across all platforms of storytelling,” Jeph Loeb, head of Marvel Television, said in a statement. “This serialized epic expands the narrative possibilities of on-demand television and gives fans the flexibility to immerse themselves how and when they want in what’s sure to be a thrilling and engaging adventure.”  
  
Marvel’s _Iron Man_ and _The Avengers_ are very popular on Blockbuster Entertainment today, and the new series will draft off that fan base, according to chief content officer Ted Sarandos.  
  
“Like Disney, Marvel is a known and loved brand that travels,” he said. Sarandos touted Blockbuster's approach as enabling “new approaches to storytelling and to global distribution.”

* * *

"RatPac-Dune Closes $300 Million Credit Facility for Warner Bros. Pics," by Dave McNary, _Variety_ , November 23, 2013  
  
RatPac-Dune Entertainment and Bank of America Merrill Lynch have closed on a $300 million credit facility that will be used to fund upcoming titles from Warner Bros. Pictures.  
  
The multi-year agreement, first announced in September, will be used by Warner Bros. and RatPac-Dune to co-finance as many as 75 upcoming titles. The studio’s hit _Gravity_ , starring Sandra Bullock, was the first title to receive the coin.  
  
The RatPac-Dune financing comes five months after the studio and longtime partner Legendary Entertainment agreed to terminate their longtime co-financing partnership at the end of the year.  
  
The co-financing arrangement also covers boxing comedy _Grudge Match_ , which opens on Christmas and stars Robert De Niro and Sylvester Stallone. It includes films from all genres and all budgets including New Line Cinema — but will exclude projects from other WB’s co-financing deals with Village Roadshow and Gulfstream, the studio’s distribution pact with Alcon Entertainment and titles derived from the _Harry Potter_ , _Lord of the Rings_ and _Hobbit_ franchises.  
  
Bank of America Merrill Lynch is the lead arranger and administrative agent. The credit facility may be increased to as much as $400 million. JPMorgan Chase and Union Bank were co-leads while Bank of America Merrill Lynch acted as structuring agent on the equity.  
  
RatPac Entertainment is a production company founded by Australian mogul James Packer while RatPac-Dune Entertainment is the film finance vehicle formed by Steven Mnuchin and RatPac Entertainment. Packer is the son of the late Australian media mogul Kerry Packer.  
  
“The credit facility arranged by Bank of America Merrill Lynch is an important part of our new and exciting agreement with Warner Bros.,” Mnuchin said in a statement. “We appreciate the bank’s leadership in providing financing to help this partnership move forward.”

* * *

"Disney Approves Miramax Multi-Year Content Library Exploitation Production Agreement, (Partially) Reuniting Miramax With Old Library," BusinessWire, December 16, 2013

_Deal Includes Development and Distribution Of Content From Original Miramax Library_

Santa Monica, CA and Burbank, CA-Miramax and The Walt Disney Company announced today the approval of a multi-year, multi-title film, television and live stage production and distribution agreement involving library-derived and original development projects covering some of the most iconic titles in the original Miramax library.  
  
Disney will continue to own the original Miramax library and under the rebranding of Touchstone Pictures for home video releases, but Miramax will able to use the library to create new film, television and stage productions derived from these titles, and to stand alongside new, original films released by Miramax. Films created under this deal will be released in the United States by Lionsgate, who has already signed a deal for home video release of new films, and sold in the international marketplace by Miramax, and could include derivative works of some of the most recognized titles in the Miramax library from _Swingers_ to _Shakespeare in Love_ in addition to new titles currently in development. It also allows for "spiritually Miramax" titles released by Touchstone Pictures and Hollywood Pictures to be covered in the deal.  
  
The partnership also includes the development of several television series based on Miramax titles such as _Good Will Hunting_ and _Flirting with Disaster_ , with Miramax to lead international distribution and team with other studios domestically and/or also internationally, on a case by case basis.  
  
The multi-year deal is the next important step in Miramax's commitment to creating new, original content, supporting the studio's return to prominence as a major supplier of smart, provocative, quality entertainment. It also further allows the concessions granted by Disney in allowing a film-backed securitization to be launched by Miramax in 2011 to raise additional debt.

Acquired on the eve of the entertainment industry's digital distribution boom in 2010 by Qatar Holding, together with the investor group led by Thomas J. Barrack, Jr.'s Colony Capital, Miramax has enjoyed tremendous success in bringing this celebrated library to audiences around the world through a global distribution capability that reaches nearly every country in the world, and has proven in the last three years to be one of the most valuable libraries in film history--a clear testament to the incredible content picking instincts of Bob and Harvey Weinstein in their 20-year-run in control after founding Miramax in 1979.  
  
"Qatar Holding fully supports this exciting development for Miramax, as part of a long-term strategy to further enhance the value in the company's extensive catalogue of material. By securing an agreement between Miramax and its former parent, The Walt Disney Company, the deal brings together two of the best-known names in the film industry to provide a dynamic partnership which will take Miramax to the next stage in its journey," Qatar Holding said.  
  
"As some of the greatest independent filmmakers in history, despite all the unpleasantries surrounding them, there is no doubt that Harvey and Bob, for all their faults, built Miramax into one of the most recognizable and powerful brands in Hollywood. The iconic library they created has enabled us to capture the value of the digital distribution revolution and harvest revenue far greater than we ever imagined," said Thomas J. Barrack Jr., Founder, Chairman and CEO of Colony Capital, LLC and Chairman of the Board of Miramax.

"Reuniting Miramax with the acres of cinematic diamonds that is the Miramax library will create an unparalleled partnership in cinematic excellence," Barrack added.

"This is an amazing opportunity for Miramax to able take full advantage of its legacy, including the part Disney had in it," says Meryl Poster, former head of production of Miramax and current co-chair of The Walt Disney Studios. "We salute Qatar Holding and Tom Barrack of Colony Capital for joining forces in this most exciting of endeavors. From movies to TV shows to the Broadway stage they have reinvigorated Miramax productions and to have the Miramax banner fly once again is a dream come true for all of us."

"Over the years, the Miramax library has stood the test of time, and brought incredible enjoyment to film lovers everywhere," says Bob Iger, CEO of The Walt Disney Company. "I want to thank Tom Barrack, Colony Capital and Qatar Holding for bringing Miramax back to life. This is truly a lucky deal for all involved, for filmmakers, and hopefully lucky for filmgoers all over the world."

Miramax anticipates the first productions will start in early to mid-2014. Predating this agreement was Miramax's development of several IP-derived and "spiritually Miramax"-derived TV series including Robert Rodriguez's _From Dusk Till Dawn_ , which is currently in production, James Mangold's _Copland_ and Martin Scorsese's _Gangs of New York_. Miramax and Sony's Screen Gems also just wrapped shooting of Jeremy Garelick's _The Wedding Ringer_.

About Qatar Holding   
Qatar Holding, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Qatar Investment Authority, is a global investment institution and a preferred partner of choice for investors, financiers and other stakeholders. It is envisaged that the already significant investment portfolio of Qatar Holding will continue to grow. Key investments of Qatar Holding include Agricultural Bank of China, Barclays plc, Canary Wharf Group (via Songbird Estates), Credit Suisse Group, Harrods Group, Hassad Food Company, Heathrow Airport Holdings Ltd, Iberdrola SA, J Sainsbury plc, London Stock Exchange Group, Qatar Exchange, Qatar Telecom, Qatar National Bank, Santander Brasil and Volkswagen AG.

About Colony Capital, LLC  
Founded in 1991 by Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Thomas J. Barrack, Jr., Colony Capital is a private, international investment firm focusing primarily on debt and equity investments in real estate-related assets and operating companies. The firm has invested $52 billion in over 30,000 assets/loans through various corporate, portfolio and complex property transactions. Colony has a team of more than 400 and is headquartered in Los Angeles, with offices in New York, Boston, Scottsdale, London, Madrid, Paris, Rome, Beirut, Hong Kong, Seoul and Taipei. 

About Miramax  
Miramax is a global film and television studio best known for its highly acclaimed, original content. The studio's new development projects include both film and TV, with the production of _The 9th Life of Hugo Drax_ most recently announced starring Jamie Dornan ( _The Fall_ ) and Aaron Paul ( _Breaking Bad, Need for Speed_ , _Triple Nine_ ). Together with Sony's Screen Gems, Miramax will release Jeremy Garelick's film _The Wedding Ringer_ (Kevin Hart, Josh Gad, Kaley Cuoco) on January 16, 2015, and the Studio also recently announced the acquisition of U.S. distribution rights to _Mr. Holmes_ , directed by Academy Award® winner Bill Condon ( _Gods and Monsters_ , _Kinsey_ ) and starring Academy Award nominees Ian McKellen ( _The Lord of the Rings_ franchise, _X-Men_ franchise) and Laura Linney ( _Kinsey_ , _You Can Count on Me_ , _The Savages_ ).

Building on its unparalleled library of characters and groundbreaking storylines, Miramax is also currently developing new television series alongside industry luminaries, with projects that include Robert Rodriguez's _From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series_ , recently renewed for a second season.

Collectively, the library of the original Miramax, the "spiritual Miramax" titles released by Touchstone Pictures and Hollywood Pictures that the company has access to use, adds more than 700 motion pictures which has received 282 Academy Award nominations and 68 Oscars with four Best Picture awards, and includes such celebrated independent films as _Pulp Fiction_ , _Shakespeare in Love, Good Will Hunting, The English Patient, Life Is Beautiful, Reservoir Dogs, Jackie Brown, Sex, Lies and Videotape, Cinema Paradiso, Desperado, My Left Foot,_ _Heavenly Creatures, Clerks, Mallrats, Chasing Amy, Dogma_ and _City Of God_ — as well as scores of commercial hits such as _Chicago_ , _Good Will Hunting_ and _Bridget Jones's Diary_ as well as the _Scream, Spy Kids, Hellraiser_ and _Scary Movie_.

Since the purchase of Miramax in 2010 by Qatar Holding, together with the investor group led by Miramax Chairman Thomas J. Barrack, Jr.'s Colony Capital, the studio's world-class global distribution team has successfully brought this renowned collection to existing and emerging platforms in nearly every country in the world.

Miramax is headquartered in Santa Monica, California, with a sales office in London.

* * *

"Brotherly Love: How the Murdoch Sons Could Destroy Their Father's Empire," by Gabriel Sherman, _New York_ , January 2, 2014  
  
Even with the split of the assets of News Corporation into a second News Corp and 21st Century Fox, one could still easily believe that Rupert Murdoch, the mastermind of this multi-continental empire, is still very much at the top, like he has been for decades. The man who built his fortune off of a single Australian newspaper into basically enshrining himself as _the_ news group Down Under, owns a considerable imprint in Great Britain, the largest grouping of conservative-leaning journalism in America, and one of the biggest film and television studios in Hollywood, may be growing far older and weathered, but his touch still seems golden, with every sign that he is not slowing down anytime soon.  
  
But of course, if you scratch the shiny happy surface, the cracks are all too visible. Insiders state that Murdoch has not had significant duties in his conglomerate since 2005, when he was sidelined most of the year from walking pneumonia. Since then, he's had a number of continuous ailments in fairly regular order, including several bouts of flu, a hip replacement, the onset of arthritis, and also once fell off his yacht and nearly drowned. "Rupert hasn't been a significant force in the company in almost a decade," one insider states. "Since then, we've been struggling to readjust, but it's come with a lot of blood and anguish."  
  
Indeed, around the time Murdoch first fell ill, one of the most notable jewels in the crown, the Fox News Channel, was roiled by scandal, with the revelations that the channel's chairman, Roger Ailes, and chief talent, Bill O'Reilly, were unrepentant sexual predators who had been ravaging the female staff and correspondents and bullying them into silence ever since the channel's launch in 1996. This was at a very crucial time, as the downfalls of the likes of Harvey Weinstein, Bryan Singer, Charlie Rose and David Geffen were playing out, and they had been keen to trot out their familiar, bloviating talking points blaming "liberal elites" for being responsible for attacking American culture and family values to lead to this. Many news media watchers, such as the watchdog groups Media Matters for America and Fairness and Accuracy In Research (FAIR) have commented how Fox News' overly combative stance, always viciously attacking Democrats, had turned it into basically an apparatchik for the GOP. "Make no mistake," Eric Boehlert, a longtime contributor to MMfA, responds. "Fox News has never been a news network, just a propaganda machine. Of course, since Ailes and O'Reilly, they've worked more to appear moderate and reasonable, and scrub their image clean. But they still will get veiled potshots of extremism in there, cloaked in their new shield."  
  
While this was going on, without Murdoch to personally step in, his sons, James and Lachlan, began openly vying for control of the behemoth. James personally took it upon himself to remove Ailes and O'Reilly and help craft new memos from the top to begin the PR restructuring. Compared to his father, James has always been more left of center, even quite friendly to more liberal groups and politicians. However, Lachlan is an unreconstructed neocon, who wants more than anything to double down and go even farther to the right than in the past. As a result, the brothers have spent the last decade in an ugly internecine conflict, constantly undermining each other, even if it's at the empire's expense.  
  
For example, James decided to build a new code of conduct for News Corporation's American journalism holdings, especially Fox News, to put stringent standards on employee conduct, especially for male correspondents. Lachlan took great offense, particularly on how news talent would behave during broadcast, with a guideline of "appear as professional and reserved as possible. Gusts of passion can be counterproductive." Lachlan said this would neuter the channel's segments, especially those by then-correspondent Sean Hannity, who was particularly known for ranting and bluster comparable to O'Reilly's. Lachlan basically tore up the code of conduct, and encouraged Hannity to be as out there as possible. Only months later, when Hannity's segment in Sacha Baron Cohen's mockumentary _Borat_ , ironically distributed by 20th Century Fox, went viral because of how he clearly fell into the trap, he went ballistic and quit his position on air. "James and Lachlan got into a fistfight afterwards," a staffer reports. "They bloodied each other considerably and basically tore up Roger's old office. The staff was terrorized, especially because they kept on throwing punches and insults at each other, even caused a lot of collateral damage. They had to be thrown out of the building and even prevented from coming back at any time. Rupert just about had a coronary when he heard."  
  
While Fox News seemed to recover and align more with James' urgings afterwards, Lachlan decided to proceed on a scorched earth campaign by redirecting his energies to England and Australia. Of course, the _News of the World_ phone hacking scandal and continuous erosion of journalistic standards at publications like _The Australian_ , with climate change denialism and Holocaust minimizing op-eds and blatant electioneering for the Liberal Party of Australia (which does not mean the same thing as the title implies) came back to haunt Lachlan, especially as Australia began moving to push back against the Murdochs' influence and the country swung ever more leftward.  
  
"James is clearly winning the war, but Lachlan refuses to admit it," a board member says. "He's pushing the conflict to ludicrous lengths and doing any action that will spite his brother. If the situation isn't resolved, their father's empire will be lost this time next decade." Indeed, the split of News Corp into its current state seems very much like a retreat from the all-media empire their father had labored long and hard to build ever since apprenticing under his father, Sir Keith Murdoch, in his younger days in Australia. Meanwhile, Rupert Murdoch continues to be positioned as the point man and face of it all, and speak confident platitudes about the future. And after having divorced his third wife, Wendi Deng, he has constantly been seen in the company of Mick Jagger's former flame, Jerry Hall, leading to speculation that they are romantically attached.

* * *

"Disney to Spend $200 Million on Marvel Series for Blockbuster Set to Film in New York," by Todd Spangler, _Variety_ , February 26, 2014  
  
The Walt Disney Company will spend $200 million over three years filming four series based on Marvel’s street heroes characters in New York City for Blockbuster Entertainment — the biggest TV or film production commitment in the history of New York State, officials said.  
  
Disney chief Bob Iger and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, at a joint press conference today, announced that Marvel’s landmark live-action television series will film principally in the Big Apple. The production is skedded to yield 60 one-hour episodes, resulting in 400 full-time jobs and 3,000 part-time production jobs.  
  
Filming the Marvel _Defenders_ project in NYC was important to Disney to ensure it was “authentic,” Iger said: “To us, it’s very, very important for us to be in New York.” The state also was “aggressive” in wooing the House of Mouse's business, he said, as New York State was among several localities in the running.  
  
New York State is granting Disney tax credits worth approximately $4 million for the new Marvel series, a source confirmed. Since Cuomo took office in 2011, the administration has undertaken a concerted effort to win business from Hollywood productions.  
  
The Marvel _Defenders_ production will begin filming in NYC in July 2014 starting with the series _Daredevil_ , followed by _Jessica Jones_ , _Iron Fist_ and _Luke Cage_. Each of those characters — less well known than those in Marvel’s Avengers franchise — is set in Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood.  
  
The series is being produced by Marvel Television, in association with ABC Television Studios/Disney-ABC Television Group, exclusively for Blockbuster Entertainment. The deal encompasses 13 hourlong episodes per series for each character, plus a miniseries of four to eight episodes with all four of the Defenders heroes. The _Defenders_ series are expected to debut on Blockbuster Entertainment sometime in 2015.  
  
Disney’s Blockbuster deal for the Marvel series, announced last fall, represents Disney finally deciding to dip their toe in the water to create original content for the service, despite having joined every other studio and production company to do so years ago, after signing their deals to have Blockbuster be the sole streaming service for all their previously-released content. Disney is clearly working to see what they can achieve with Blockbuster with something relatively second-string, before pulling out the big guns to do original programming for material from ABC, Disney Channel, Walt Disney Pictures, Touchstone Pictures, Hollywood Pictures, Caravan Pictures, the Miramax library, Walt Disney Animation Studios, Pixar, Lucasfilm and the A-team Marvel properties.  
  
In a statement, Blockbuster Entertainment chief content officer Ted Sarandos said, “The Defenders are classic New York characters; smart, resourceful and tough enough to always stand up for what’s right. We’re delighted they’re coming to life on their home turf thanks to Governor Cuomo and his team.”  
  
According to Cuomo, over the past three years, New York State’s film development efforts have produced $6 billion in economic activity and 400,000 jobs. “It’s an entirely new business line for the state, if you will,” he said. The Empire State offers up to $400 million in tax credits per year to TV and movie productions.  
  
The financial crisis that began in 2007 made New York State realize it couldn’t rely solely on Wall Street, Cuomo said. “It was a wakeup call,” the governor said. The film biz, he added, originally started a century ago in New York, not California. “They stole the industry from us," Cuomo said half-jokingly. "This is just its rightful return."  
  
Iger — a native of Oceanside, New York, on Long Island, who started out in the biz at ABC’s Upper West Side studios in 1974 — noted that the House of Mouse has contributed some $500 billion to New York’s economy since 2008 and has supported 9000 jobs. “I’m a proud New Yorker,” said Iger.  
  
Disney held the event at ABC’s _Good Morning America_ studios in Times Square. Iger ceremonially presented Cuomo with a framed poster of the Marvel Defenders characters.

* * *

"Sony Nails $200 Million Co-Financing Deal With LStar Capital, Citibank," by Sharon Waxman, _TheWrap_ , April 8, 2014  
  
Sony Pictures has closed a $200 million financing deal with Texas-based LStar Capital and Citibank, according to an individual close to the deal.  
  
The deal was pursued by studio chairman Michael Lynton, looking to lay off some of the risk of the studio’s movie slate after a weak performance in 2013 that has led to hundreds of lay-offs and an executive shake-up at the studio. The move seems the latest result of pressure by activist investor Dan Loeb, who had agitated for Sony Corporation to sell the studio, which the parent company has said it is not prepared to do.  
  
Still, the pressure has provoked all kinds of reactions at the studio, including this latest deal to lay off risk and free up capital for the studio to make more movies or pursue other deals.  
  
The financing deal gives LStar Capital, a $45 billion fund largely focused on real estate, its first taste of Hollywood, and will give the fund a stake in nearly all of Sony’s movies, including the upcoming _Last Action Hero II: Retirement Sucks_ , a sequel to the 1993 Arnold Schwarzenegger vehicle, produced by Springbok Productions and Joel Silver, which will come out next summer.  
  
The deal closed on Tuesday, according to the insider, and was led by Lynton, business affairs executive Andrew Gumpert and Stefan Litt in finance.  
  
The studio has not had a significant outside financing partner since the expiration of a deal with Relativity several years ago. The studio had a miserable summer in 2013, with disappointments in _After Earth_ and _White House Down_. With no real action tentpoles until the Springbok-produced conclusion of Stieg Larsson's _Millennium_ trilogy ( _The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest_ ) for the holidays, this summer the studio will rely on several comedies to carry its box office share, including _22 Jump Street_ , _Sex Tape_ and _Think Like a Man Too_. LStar and Citibank will have stakes in all of these.  
  
The deal will not include one of Sony’s most valuable franchises, James Bond, which it co-produces with MGM.  
  
On the other side the deal was led by Ben Waisbren. The studio had been close to closing a co-financing deal with Blue Anchor for $300 million, according to knowledgeable insiders. That deal never funded, and Sony grew tired of waiting for it to close.

* * *

"Saban Capital Group Launches Saban Films and Taps Bill Bromiley as President," BusinessWire, May 6, 2014  
  
 _Haim Saban Enters the North American Distribution Space Actively Acquiring Films Beginning in Cannes_  
  
Los Angeles, CA – Haim Saban, a worldwide pioneer and leader in the entertainment industry and Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Saban Capital Group, Inc. (“SCG”), a private investment firm specializing in the media, entertainment and communications industries, announced the launch of Saban Films today. Saban has made a major capital contribution to this new venture which will look to acquire 8 to 10 high-quality, feature films per year and distribute in North America via a major studio distribution partner, with whom they are currently in talks.  
  
Saban Capital Group’s Haim Saban said; “I have a long-standing and deep affection for independent film and saw an opportunity in the theatrical distribution arena as well as an emerging distribution platform strategy that focuses on cable, satellite, and telco VOD. Film is a natural progression for Saban Capital Group with existing interests already in television, media and brands.”  
  
In addition, Saban has tapped former RLJ Entertainment veteran Bill Bromiley as the President of Saban Films. Bromiley will begin in Cannes – looking to acquire commercial, talent-driven films. The company will look at films in all stages of production – from script to finished projects, to be released theatrically as well as across multiple digital platforms including a day and date release strategy.  
  
The management team of the new venture will also include Shanan Becker, Chief Financial Officer and Ness Saban, Director of Business Development.  
  
Adam Chesnoff, President and COO of Saban Capital Group continued; “We’ve put together a team led by a forward thinking industry veteran who shares the vision, scope and principles which are at the core of the Saban brand.”  
  
Bromiley adds: “The film distribution business is ever-changing as the audiences’ choices of consuming entertainment expand every day. There is still a need for smart, commercial product which is marketed and distributed properly. We have a low-risk, high-reward distribution business model which is attractive for filmmakers.”  
  
Prior to Saban Films, Bromiley served as Chief Acquisitions Officer of RLJ Entertainment, formerly known as Image Entertainment, where he was responsible for the acquisition of all content. While at Image, Bromiley shepherded such titles as Management (starring Jennifer Aniston, Woody Harrelson), Academy Award nominated _The Way Back_ (starring Ed Harris, Colin Farrell), Academy Award® nominated _Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead_ (directed by Sidney Lumet, starring Philip Seymour Hoffman, Ethan Hawke and Marisa Tomei), and Academy Award nominated _Encounters at the End of the World_ (directed by Werner Herzog).  
  
Becker joins Saban Films from RLJ Entertainment where he served as the EVP of Business Operations overseeing finance, planning and analysis along with cash management of the feature film division. Becker has previously held senior positions at Paramount Home Entertainment and DreamWorks Home Entertainment.

* * *

"AT&T to Acquire DIRECTV," BusinessWire, May 18, 2014 **  
**

  * Creates Content Distribution Leader Across Mobile, Video & Broadband Platforms 
    * The premier pay TV brand with the best content relationships now poised to deliver video to multiple screens – mobile, TV, laptops and more – to meet consumers’ future viewing and programming preferences
    * Unparalleled video content distribution scale in U.S. – nationwide mobile and video networks; broadband to cover 70 million customer locations with our broadband expansion
  * Latin America’s Leading Pay TV Provider with Significant Growth Potential
  * Immediate & Long-Term Financial Benefits 
    * Accretive within 12 months after close on free cash flow per share & adjusted EPS basis
    * Cost synergies expected to exceed $1.6 billion annual run rate by year three after closing
    * Improves revenue mix – dramatically increases video revenues, accelerates broadband growth and significantly expands revenues from outside United States
  * Delivers Significant Benefits for Consumers 
    * Commitment to expand and enhance broadband to 15 million customer locations, primarily in rural areas
    * Stronger competitive alternative to cable, with a better customer experience and enhanced innovation
    * Continued commitment to net neutrality



DALLAS, TX and EL SEGUNDO, CA – AT&T (NYSE:T) and DIRECTV (NASDAQ: TV) today announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement under which AT&T will acquire DIRECTV in a stock-and-cash transaction for $95 per share based on AT&T’s Friday closing price. The agreement has been approved unanimously by the Boards of Directors of both companies.  
  
The transaction combines complementary strengths to create a unique new competitor with unprecedented capabilities in mobility, video and broadband services.  
  
DIRECTV is the premier pay TV provider in the United States and Latin America, with a high-quality customer base, the best selection of programming, the best technology for delivering and viewing high-quality video on any device and the best customer satisfaction among major U.S. cable and satellite TV providers. AT&T has a best-in-class nationwide mobile network and a high-speed broadband network that will cover 70 million customer locations with the broadband expansion enabled by this transaction.  
  
The combined company will be a content distribution leader across mobile, video and broadband platforms. This distribution scale will position the company to better meet consumers’ future viewing and programming preferences, whether traditional pay TV, on-demand video services like Blockbuster Entertainment streamed over a broadband connection (mobile or fixed) or a combination of viewing preferences on any screen.  
  
The transaction enables the combined company to offer consumers bundles that include video, high-speed broadband and mobile services using all of its sales channels -- AT&T’s 2,300 retail stores and thousands of authorized dealers and agents of both companies nationwide.  
  
“This is a unique opportunity that will redefine the video entertainment industry and create a company able to offer new bundles and deliver content to consumers across multiple screens – mobile devices, TVs, laptops, cars and even airplanes. At the same time, it creates immediate and long-term value for our shareholders,” said Randall Stephenson, AT&T Chairman and CEO. “DIRECTV is the best option for us because they have the premier brand in pay TV, the best content relationships, and a fast-growing Latin American business. DIRECTV is a great fit with AT&T and together we’ll be able to enhance innovation and provide customers new competitive choices for what they want in mobile, video and broadband services. We look forward to welcoming DIRECTV’s talented people to the AT&T family.”  
  
“This compelling and complementary combination will bring significant benefits to all consumers, shareholders and DIRECTV employees,” said Mike White, president and CEO of DIRECTV. “U.S. consumers will have access to a more competitive bundle; shareholders will benefit from the enhanced value of the combined company; and employees will have the advantage of being part of a stronger, more competitive company, well positioned to meet the evolving video and broadband needs of the 21st century marketplace.”  
  
DIRECTV has premier content, particularly live sports programming. It has the exclusive pay TV rights to NFL SUNDAY TICKET that provides every out-of-market game, every Sunday afternoon, on TV, laptops and mobile devices. The new AT&T will be better positioned to develop unique content offerings for consumers through, among other initiatives, AT&T’s joint venture with The Chernin Group. Today, DIRECTV’s content ownership includes ROOT SPORTS Networks and minority stakes in the Game Show Network, MLB Network, NHL Network and the Sundance Channel.  
  
DIRECTV will continue to be headquartered in El Segundo, California, after the deal closes.  
  
Customer Benefits and Commitments, Upon Closing  
  
Together, the companies will be a stronger competitive alternative to cable for consumers wanting a better bundle of top-quality broadband, video and mobile services, as well as a better customer experience and enhanced innovation. Consumers will also benefit from the combined companies’ additional scale in video content distribution across its mobile, video and broadband networks. The combined company will continue to provide the world-class service and best video and entertainment experience for which DIRECTV is known.  
  
With the benefits of the transaction, AT&T is able to commit to do the following, when the deal closes:

  * 15 Million Customer Locations Get More High Speed Broadband Competition. AT&T will use the merger synergies to expand its plans to build and enhance high-speed broadband service to 15 million customer locations, mostly in rural areas where AT&T does not provide high-speed broadband service today, utilizing a combination of technologies including fiber to the premises and fixed wireless local loop capabilities. This new commitment, to be completed within four years after close, is on top of the fiber and Project VIP broadband expansion plans AT&T has already announced. Customers will be able to buy broadband service stand-alone or as part of a bundle with other AT&T services.
  * Stand-Alone Broadband. For customers who only want a broadband service and may choose to consume video through an over-the-top (OTT) service like Blockbuster Entertainment, the combined company will offer stand-alone wireline broadband service at speeds of at least 6 Mbps (where feasible) in areas where AT&T offers wireline IP broadband service today at guaranteed prices for three years after closing.
  * Nationwide Package Pricing on DIRECTV. DIRECTV’s TV service will continue to be available on a stand-alone basis at nationwide package prices that are the same for all customers, no matter where they live, for at least three years after closing.
  * Net Neutrality Commitment. Continued commitment for three years after closing to the FCC's Open Internet protections established in 2010, irrespective of whether the FCC re-establishes such protections for other industry participants following the DC Circuit Court of Appeals vacating those rules.
  * Spectrum Auction. The transaction does not alter AT&T’s plans to meaningfully participate in the FCC’s planned spectrum auctions later this year and in 2015. AT&T intends to bid at least $9 billion in connection with the 2015 incentive auction provided there is sufficient spectrum available in the auction to provide AT&T a viable path to at least a 2x10 MHz nationwide spectrum footprint.



Latin America  
  
DIRECTV’s Latin American business is the leading pay TV provider in the region and has more than 18 million subscribers, including all Sky Mexico customers. DIRECTV’s satellite platform’s broad reach remains advantaged when compared with cable and telco in Latin America. Latin America has an underpenetrated pay TV market (about 40% of households subscribe to pay TV) and a growing middle class, and is DIRECTV’s fastest growing customer segment.  
  
Summary Terms of Transaction  
  
DIRECTV shareholders will receive $95.00 per share under the terms of the merger, comprised of $28.50 per share in cash and $66.50 per share in AT&T stock. The stock portion will be subject to a collar such that DIRECTV shareholders will receive 1.905 AT&T shares if AT&T stock price is below $34.90 at closing and 1.724 AT&T shares if AT&T stock price is above $38.58 at closing. If AT&T stock price at closing is between $34.90 and $38.58, DIRECTV shareholders will receive a number of shares between 1.724 and 1.905, equal to $66.50 in value.  
  
This purchase price implies a total equity value of $48.5 billion and a total transaction value of $67.1 billion, including DIRECTV’s net debt. This transaction implies an adjusted enterprise value multiple of 7.7 times DIRECTV’s 2014 estimated EBITDA. Post-transaction, DIRECTV shareholders will own between 14.5% and 15.8% of AT&T shares on a fully-diluted basis based on the number of AT&T shares outstanding today.  
  
AT&T intends to finance the cash portion of the transaction through a combination of cash on hand, sale of non-core assets, committed financing facilities and opportunistic debt market transactions.  
  
To facilitate the regulatory approval process in Latin America, AT&T intends to divest its interest in América Móvil. This includes 73 million publicly listed L shares and all of its AA shares. AT&T’s designees to the América Móvil Board of Directors will tender their resignations immediately to avoid even the appearance of any conflict.  
  
Transaction Creates Immediate and Long-Term Shareholder Value  
  
AT&T expects the deal to be accretive on a free cash flow per share and adjusted EPS basis within the first 12 months after closing.  
  
The combination provides significant opportunities for operating efficiencies. AT&T expects cost synergies to exceed $1.6 billion on an annual run rate basis by year three after closing. The expected synergies are primarily driven by increased scale in video.  
  
Along with DIRECTV’s current strong cash flows, this transaction is expected to support future investment in growth opportunities and shareholder returns.  
  
The combination diversifies AT&T’s revenue mix and provides numerous growth opportunities as it dramatically increases video revenues, accelerates broadband growth and significantly expands revenues from outside the United States. Given the structure of this transaction, which includes AT&T stock consideration as part of the deal and the monetization of non-core assets, AT&T expects to continue to maintain the strongest balance sheet in the industry following the transaction close.  
  
AT&T’s 2014 guidance for the company remains largely unchanged. However, the company’s intention is to divest its interest in América Móvil, which will result in an approximately $0.05 reduction in EPS, as the América Móvil investment will no longer be accounted for under the equity method. Adjusted 2014 EPS growth is now expected to come in at the low-end of the company’s mid-single digit guidance.  
  
The merger is subject to approval by DIRECTV shareholders and review by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission, U.S. Department of Justice, a few U.S. states and some Latin American countries. The transaction is expected to close within approximately 12 months.  
  
About AT&T  
AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T) is a premier communications holding company and one of the most honored companies in the world. Its subsidiaries and affiliates – AT&T operating companies – are the providers of AT&T services in the United States and internationally. With a powerful array of network resources that includes the nation’s most reliable 4G LTE network, AT&T is a leading provider of wireless, Wi-Fi, high-speed broadband, voice and cloud-based services. A leader in mobile Internet, AT&T also offers the best wireless coverage worldwide of any U.S. carrier, offering the most wireless phones that work in the most countries. It also offers TV service with the AT&T U-Verse® brand. The company’s suite of IP-based business communications services is one of the most advanced in the world.  
  
About DIRECTV  
DIRECTV (NASDAQ: TV) is one of the world's leading providers of digital television entertainment services. Through its subsidiaries and affiliated companies in the United States, Brazil, Mexico and other countries in Latin America, DIRECTV provides digital television service to over 20 million customers in the United States and more than 18 million customers in Latin America. DIRECTV sports and entertainment properties include two regional sports networks (Rocky Mountain and Pittsburgh), and minority ownership interests in ROOT SPORTS Northwest and Game Show Network.

* * *

"The Walt Disney Company to Acquire Maker Studios, the Leading Network of Online Video Content," BusinessWire, March 24, 2014

Burbank, CA—Furthering its goal of bringing content to consumers on all the platforms they prefer, The Walt Disney Company (NYSE:DIS) has agreed to acquire Maker Studios, the leading network of online video content on YouTube.

Maker Studios shareholders will receive total consideration of $500 million, and a performance-linked earn-out of up to $450 million if the strong performance targets are met.

With more than 55,000 channels, 380 million subscribers and 5.5 billion views per month on YouTube, Maker has established itself as the top online video network for Millennials.

By acquiring Maker Studios, Disney will gain advanced technology and business intelligence capability regarding consumers’ discovery and interaction with short-form online videos, including Disney content.

“Short-form online video is growing at an astonishing pace and with Maker Studios, Disney will now be at the center of this dynamic industry with an unmatched combination of advanced technology and programming expertise and capabilities,” said Robert A. Iger, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, The Walt Disney Company.

“Disney is synonymous with the best entertainment and is the ideal partner for us, strengthening our position as the leading player in online video,” said Ynon Kreiz, Executive Chairman and CEO of Maker Studios.

Maker Studios will report to Disney Chief Financial Officer Jay Rasulo. Maker Studios will remain headquartered in Culver City, CA., with operations in New York and London.

The transaction, which is subject to regulatory clearances, is expected to close in Disney’s third fiscal quarter.

About The Walt Disney Company  
The Walt Disney Company, together with its subsidiaries and affiliates, is a leading diversified international entertainment and media enterprise with five business segments: media networks, parks and resorts, studio entertainment, consumer products and interactive. Disney is a Dow 30 company and had annual revenues of $45 billion in its Fiscal Year 2013.

About Maker Studios  
Maker Studios is a next-generation media and technology company and the world’s largest provider of online video content for Millennials. Maker Studios has more than 5.5 billion monthly video views and 380 million subscribers, targeting the coveted Millennial audience. Maker Studios is headquartered in Culver City, CA., and has operations in New York and London.

* * *

"Miramax Closes $250 Million Securitization," by Brent Lang, _Variety_ , August 21, 2014

Miramax has secured a $25 million credit facility and $250 million securitization, which it plans to use to pay down debt and to support its television and film ventures.

The company used its film library (consisting of hundreds of titles from 1980-2001, and "Spiritually Miramax" titles released by Disney's Touchstone Pictures division) to secure the notes. It’s been three years since the company’s last securitization in 2011, which it undertook in order to refinance its debt.

The latest notes are due in 2026.

“We appreciate that the market recognizes Miramax’s quality of content, combined with the consistency, length, diversity and credit quality of contractual income streams, and we look forward to putting these additional funds to work as we grow new production in line with the powerful Miramax brand,” said Miramax chairman Thomas J. Barrack in a statement.

Miramax was shuttered by Disney and folded into Touchstone in 2001, after the company limped along without its founders, Bob and Harvey Weinstein, after the latter's exposure for sexual misconduct. The name purchased from Disney in 2010 for $357 million by a consortium of investors that included billionaire Ron Tutor and Colony Capital, and Disney allowed the earlier securitization and for the new company to share in the cash flow from distribution pacts (TV broadcast, digital, streaming through Blockbuster Entertainment, DVD/Blu-ray) for a library of films that includes _Pulp Fiction_ and _Shakespeare in Love_.

In 2013, it inked a development deal with blessing from Disney to create and produce sequels and television shows based on films from its library such as _Gangs of New York_ and _From Dusk Till Dawn_.

A company spokesman said the funds could be used to help with production and development efforts and would help pay down older and more expensive debt. However, the credit line is not being tapped yet.

The securitization transaction included the issuance of $250 million aggregate principal amount of 3.34% notes due 2026, as well as a $25 million revolving credit facility, which was undrawn at closing.

The notes and revolving credit facility are rated BBB+ by Standard & Poor’s and BBB (high) by DBRS. Barclays advised on the transaction, served as the bookrunner for the securitization and was the lender on the credit facility.

* * *

“MGM Buys 55% Of Roma Downey And Mark Burnett’s Empire; Refurbishes United Artists,” By Mike Fleming, Jr. and Anita Busch, _Deadline Hollywood_ , September 22, 2014  
  
In a deal that follows Roma Downey and Mark Burnett coming aboard the MGM/Paramount epic _Ben-Hur_ that Timur Bekmambetov will direct with Jack Huston in the title role, MGM has acquired a 55% interest in Downey, Burnett and Hearst Entertainment’s One Three Media and Lightworkers Media, including all of their interests in such hit shows as _Survivor_ , _The Voice, Shark Tank,_ and _The Bible_. All this will be consolidated into a new media venture called United Artists Media Group. MGM chairman and CEO Gary Barber made the deal with Burnett, Downey and Steven Swartz, Hearst Corp’s president and CEO. Financial terms were not disclosed, other than Springbok Productions helping provide an unspecified infusion of cash for the purpose of setting up UAMG.  
  
UAMG will primarily focus on developing, producing and financing premium content across all platforms, including scripted and non-scripted television programs, motion pictures and digital content. Burnett will serve as the CEO of UAMG. Downey will serve as president of Lightworkers Media, the faith and family division of UAMG.  
  
Last time MGM sparked UA, it was when Springbok helped provide funding to relaunch it and Orion Pictures, regarding their adaptation of Stieg Larsson’s _Millennium_ trilogy, which certainly was big in its own right. Before that attempt, it gave the keys to the camper to Tom Cruise and then-partner Paula Wagner, which fizzled. The United Artists banner was famously first launched in 1919 by Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks and D.W. Griffith to give artists more control over the product and their financials.  
  
The move comes at a time when faith-based product is seeing tremendous success at the box office and audiences are hungry for these types of properties. Some of the most profitable films of late have been faith based — from Burnett/Downey’s _Son of God_ at Fox, to _God’s Not Dead_ and even Sony’s _Heaven is For Real_ from filmmaker Randall Wallace. What a smart move. Burnett/Downey are savvy marketers who took their wildly successful Bible series and basically repurposed it as a feature film. Then they cut versions in different languages to tap into the Spanish and Korean markets.  
  
“I am extremely pleased to be partnering with Mark, Roma and Steve in this incredible new venture that we believe will be accretive to MGM’s business,” said Barber. “Mark and Roma are without a doubt the most successful and dominant players in unscripted television and faith-based content and we are excited to be distributing UAMG content worldwide. Together with Hearst Entertainment’s vast array of media assets and knowledge, MGM could not have wished for better partners to continue to grow the MGM business of creating premium content for distribution across multiple platforms. Additionally, we are extremely optimistic about the launch of an exciting new Over-The-Top (OTT) faith-based channel. Finally, I am truly honored to welcome Mark, Roma, Steve and their entire team into the MGM family.”  
  
The planned launch of the OTT channel will create a singular destination for audiences of faith worldwide and on every screen. The channel’s programming will consist of a mix of original new content, premium film and TV catalog titles, curated Christian music videos, regional and national congregation portals, sermons from worldwide religious leaders and user-created short-form faith-based videos.  
  
“We’ll work together with Gary and the MGM team in all aspects of our business,” said Brian Edwards, chief operating officer of One Three Media and Lightworkers Media, who will retain that position with UAMG. He added, “Mark and Roma will continue to develop all UAMG projects, while we work closely with MGM’s distribution, marketing and other business groups, to achieve a seamless business structure.”  
  
Burnett shows premiering this week are _The Voice, Survivor_ and _Shark Tank_ ; he just made a straight to series deal with ABC for a new game show called _500 Questions_ , and his first show in partnership with El Rey Network, _Lucha Underground_ , and TNT’s _On The Menu_ both premiere in October. Burnett and Downey have also started principal photography on the NBC miniseries _A.D._ as well as CBS’ _The Dovekeepers_ through their Lightworkers banner. Besides _Ben-Hur_ , they have the feature film _Little Boy_ which Open Road recently acquired.  
  
United Artists has had a colorful history. It was put up for sale in 1980 and then-billionaire owner Kirk Kerkorian via his Tracinda Corp. took the helm. Five years later, Ted Turner emerged to buy MGM/UA in a licensing deal. Who can forget the brouhaha that erupted over Turner's plan over colorization of those films? But the UA brand name itself was kept by Kerkorian.  
  
Then came Giancarlo Parretti in the early 1990s who merged Pathe Communications into MGM and hence, it became known as MGM/Pathe. The days of Parretti were the dark days of the studio until its bank Credit Lyonnais took it over.  
  
In 1993, Credit Lyonnais re-started the label again, breathing in new life to it by the hiring of John Calley. During Calley’s run, they also restarted the very lucrative James Bond franchise with the 1995 film _GoldenEye_.  
  
In 1996, the French bank Credit Lyonnais sold the studio back to Kirk Kerkorian, taking Wall Street by surprise. Kerkorian and Credit Lyonnais had sued and counter-sued each other in very bitter lawsuits over the sale of the studio in 1990 to Paretti in the years previous. The billionaire acquired the studio over Capella, MGM Mangement (led by then chairman Frank Mancuso), News Corporation, New Regency and Lazard CDK. It was a wild bidding process that kept us reporters on our feet as PolyGram and Morgan Creek (yes, that same Gary Barber who now leads the studio) also kicked the tires.  
  
After Calley left to go run Sony Pictures Entertainment, United Artists kind of floundered for a time. It eventually ended up hiring October Films’ late Bingham Ray who pumped out some quality films including Michael Moore’s _Bowling for Columbine_ (Moore had a relationship with the studio in the past under Mancuso) and Terry George’s _Hotel Rwanda_ about Paul Rusesabagina (a real-life hero who should have won a Nobel Peace Prize as he is every bit the same kind of man as Oskar Schindler).  
  
In 2005, Comcast, Sony and a consortium of banks purchased MGM and United Artists for around $4.8 billion. Sony then closed MGM’s distribution and merged it with its own, releasing product through Sony Pictures Classics. Until … 2006, when Cruise and his partner Wagner (his former agent-turned-producer) entered into a partnership with the studio in a reformatted UA. Cruise then transferred the small amount of ownership he had in the studio back over to MGM Holdings. MGM then reopened as a distribution concern.  
  
In 2010, Spyglass’ Gary Barber and Roger Birnbaum took over MGM, taking over as it teetered in bankruptcy court. Springbok then negotiated the _Millennium_ deal with MGM and Sony, in which Sony would help distribute and finance the films, while three different branches of MGM, the company proper, UA, and the relaunched Orion Pictures, would also be credited. Two years after coming aboard the ship, Birnbaum moved onto becoming a producer and Barber (one of the smartest businessmen around who understands the foreign market and deals) took the reins. And now this. Brilliant.

* * *

"Dialogue: John Kricfalusi," by Stephen Galloway, _Deadline Hollywood_ , September 25, 2014  
  
John Kricfalusi, or John K., as he is commonly known, is one of the biggest stalwarts in the history of animation. Having gotten his start animating _Yogi Bear_ and _Jetsons_ cartoons, then finding himself under the tutelage of the legendary Ralph Bakshi, he built on the former's style of pushing the envelope regarding adult themes into a new type of style that was more accessible to children as well. In 1991, Nickelodeon started airing _The Ren & Stimpy Show, _which ended up becoming his trademark and most notable series, giving kids a show that openly embraced the types of humor they were attracted, largely toilet and gross-out, though with some obvious veiled adult references as well. "Lots of people didn't get it at the time," Kricfalusi says. "The pearl clutchers and people that don't truly understand what a cartoon is or is meant to be. But it found the audience it needed, and that's what matters." The show was an absolute smash, becoming one of Nickelodeon's biggest and most popular, among the likes of _Rugrats_ , _Doug_ , _Rocko's Modern Life_ and _SpongeBob SquarePants_. Even after it stopped production in 1997, the show is constantly rerun to this day and remains a favorite. But Kricfalusi didn't stop there. Besides animating videos for the likes of Tenacious D and "Weird Al" Yankovic, he also created more shows, _The Goddamn George Liquor Program!_ , which focuses on a man, the titular George Liquor and his 21-year-old daughter Sody Pop, aired online during 1998-2000, _Ripping Friends_ during 2001-2006, and most recently, _The Madcap World of Mr. Snugglebutt_ , which started airing in 2010 and is about to enter its final season. Furthermore, his creations will all be featured in the recently announced sequel to _Who Framed Roger Rabbit?_ , made by the original team of Amblin Entertainment and Robert Zemeckis, with distribution by Disney via its Touchstone Pictures brand, and co-production by Denver and Delilah Animation, the animation division of Springbok Productions. "I insisted on being involved in creating their sequences, that way they'll be done right," he replies. This is just one sign of another thing Kricfalusi is known for, his sense of arrogance and highly opinionated ideas about animation.  
  
Q: I know you've had a lot of influences in your animation. What can you say they are?  
K: A lot of the classics, Looney Tunes, Tex Avery, Hanna-Barbera. Of course, I did some lower-tier work on _Yogi Bear_ and _The Jetsons_ , which was just as much of a school for me as when I worked with Ralph Bakshi.  
Q: You've also stated how your childhood was formative in other ways, especially your views about women.  
K: Seeing abuse and/or sexual assault in front of your eyes when you're so young, it leaves a scar on you. I mean, prior to that, I was definitely identifying as a typical male chauvinist, wanting to be just like my dad. If I hadn't seen what I did, I'm sure I would've stayed that way, might've become worse. But I don't like to dwell on it too much, other than I took that with me when Nickelodeon came calling and I could help point out the bad apples in their midst, or in animation in general.  
Q: Who specifically do you refer to?  
K: Chris Savino, for one. He was getting away with a lot of shit while animating the likes of _Dexter's Laboratory_ , _Powerpuff Girls_ , _My Life As a Teenage Robot_. Thankfully he was stopped. I also noticed Jared Fogle, the Subway guy, was clearly not what he appeared to be, and that there was something more, especially when he did this little promotional thing at Universal Studios Florida, at Nickelodeon Studios. And lots of lesser names as well.  
Q: You also put yourself on the line to defend Dan Schneider, the guy who created hit shows for Nickelodeon like _The Amanda Show_ , _Drake & Josh_, _Zoey 101,_ and _iCarly_.  
K: Oh, it's just a fucking stupid Internet wives' tale. All this "he must clearly be a pedo" shit was created out of fucking thin air. Especially when nothing ever hit the airwaves. After what people like Harvey Weinstein did, there's no way it would've been kept a secret. And all this shaming of him for posting images of feet or showing closeups of feet. It's just fucking feet! It's totally innocent, and I would know.  
Q: Your work has long attracted lots of attention and admirers, especially _Ren & Stimpy, _but even your later series. What's your secret?  
K: I know how to do my job and be damn good at it. It's as simple as that. OK, there's more, but I really don't want to make a scene.  
Q: That's weird. After all, you've famously denigrated shows like _The Simpsons_ and _Animaniacs_ for not living up to your standards of what constitutes a cartoon.  
K: Well, if you're going to bring it up, I guess I'll hit the lowlights for you. I stand by what I've always said, those shows are made by animators who can't write and writers who can't animate. Their jokes aren't good enough, and they really don't have a reason to try and go for deeper plots. Animation is a very simple concept: create something over the top and out there, get your laughs, move on.  
Q: A lot of people don't see it that way. They like very deep stories and character development. Look at Disney and Pixar films, the works of Hayao Miyazaki, _My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic_ , many anime series, stop motion works, or even Gerald Scarfe's animations for the film version of Pink Floyd's _The Wall_.  
K: It's pretension heaped atop pretension. Animation isn't supposed to be very deep or intellectual or moral or respectable, it's supposed to be a call of rebellion to celebrate something so righteously dumb and obnoxious.  
Q: Have you ever seen Cameron Crowe's film _Almost Famous_? You're basically saying the lines that Philip Seymour Hoffman as rock critic Lester Bangs tells William Miller at the beginning.  
K: I don't know Cameron Crowe from Adam. I just feel that animation has basically been co-opted and repackaged as something sterile and corporate for the purpose of gathering simpletons around to watch while they stand like sheep. Everything that has happened lately, you can call it many things, but not animation.  
Q: You certainly seem to stand almost alone in that regard. So, why exactly did you accept the offer to work with Springbok, who is a big part of what you say is happening to animation?  
K: If I'm not there to supervise my characters being there, some hack will come in and ruin it. I also managed to get a concession out of them to do more _George Liquor_ episodes with me and release more of them on the Web, which is a first for them.  
Q: You don't consider this selling out?  
K: No, because I'm still beholden to what I believe and I'm not giving an inch for them. And I doubt you can say that about everyone else whose work is being licensed for the movie.  
Q: And at the end of your life, you don't feel your views about animation will have evolved?  
K: This is who I am. I'm proud of that.

* * *

"Miramax to manage TV, Digital for Revolution Studios Films: MIPCOM," by Mike Fleming, Jr., _Deadline Hollywood_ , October 12, 2014

Heading into MIPCOM, Springbok Productions has arranged for Miramax to manage global television and digital distribution licensing for all film titles in the Revolution Studios library. That includes the Morgan Creek international film library that Revolution had acquired prior to its going dormant, and then its assets being purchased by Springbok for $450 million in 2010. This extends a relationship Springbok has with Miramax in helping the tarnished old brand return to its former glory by helping put money into the joint venture Filmyard Holdings, the current owners of the Miramax name, alongside Colony Capital and Qatar Investment Authority. Springbok continues to retain home video rights for the Revolution titles and the international home video rights for the Morgan Creek library, and will also maintain 25 percent of the TV and digital fees going forward.

The Revolution titles include the likes of _Black Hawk Down, America's Sweethearts, 13 Going on 30, Maid in Manhattan, XXX_ and _Daddy Day Care_ , while the Morgan Creek films include _Young Guns, Young Guns II, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, True Romance, Freejack, The Last of the Mohicans_ and _Major League_.

Springbok CEO Jennifer Todd called the deal the "next step in our relationship with Miramax, and in helping a venerated brand that produced hundreds of quality titles, acres of harvestable diamonds, return to prominence. Their sales team is among the most respected and creative in the industry. Miramax representing Revolution globally is the next natural step in continuing our collaboration of our already established and strong domestic foundation."

Said Miramax EVP of Worldwide TV sales Joe Patrick: "This fantastic collection of content is highly complementary to the Miramax catalog, providing us unique positioning within the international TV and digital landscape."


	5. 2015-2019

"Let’s Get Together And Do It Again: Springbok and Mel Gibson Reteam For New Partnership," by Diana Lodderhouse, _Variety_ , January 13, 2015  
  
One may be convinced that they are in a time loop with a recent announcement: Springbok Productions has entered a three-picture deal with Mel Gibson and his production company, Icon Productions. If this seems familiar, that’s because it is. Springbok and Icon made such a deal back in 2004, after Gibson hit paydirt with _The Passion of the Christ_ , and worked together on Gibson’s 2006 film _Apocalypto_. However, Gibson’s litany of controversies made Springbok scrap the deal and leave the newly toxic actor and director to himself. Now, almost a decade later, it appears they wish to try again.  
  
Jennifer Todd, CEO of the production company founded by Kurt Cobain and Charlize Theron, trumpeted the new pact. “Mel Gibson and Icon are one of the leading lights in the entertainment industry. We never regretted our original deal, and it was worth it when we made _Apocalypto_ together. That’s a film we still are very proud of. Time heals all wounds, and we feel the time is now to give Mel and Icon another chance and make some magic together.”  
  
Bruce Davey, Gibson’s longtime partner and co-founder of Icon, was similarly pleased. “Kurt, Charlize, Jennifer and the Springbok family have always been good to us. Even after the original deal fell through, they have kept in touch with us, and helped finance some of post-2006 films. Most notably, they helped _Mary and Max_ (a 2008 claymation film involving a pen pal relationship between an Australian girl and a morbidly obese man with Asperger’s syndrome from New York) find a receptive audience in the theaters outside of Australia, and also gave a lot of attention and help to _Stonehearst Asylum_. Now, we get to roll up our sleeves and head back to work together. Mel and I couldn’t be happier.”  
  
After Gibson’s 2006 DUI arrest, where he was captured commencing into a bizarre anti-Semitic tirade (as well as attacking Springbok), as well as his being accused of domestic violence in 2010 by former girlfriend Oksana Grigorieva (who released a damning series of voicemails Gibson left her to the public), Gibson and Icon’s stature was not considered very much. Gibson’s role in the 2011 film _The Beaver_ , directed by Jodie Foster, was now looked at under a very harsh and unflattering light, and failed to gain traction. His movie _Get the Gringo_ was shunted to the direct to video graveyard, and his appearance in Robert Rodriguez’ _Machete Kills_ was similarly ignored. Icon, meanwhile, has lost its North American and European operations, the Majestic film library, its television production arm, and, while maintaining its Santa Monica offices, is mainly focused as a distributor of films (its own and others) in Australia, as well as owning the Dendy Cinemas chain. The Icon UK production and distribution team is owned by Access Industries and Prescience, respectively.  
  
When queried as to why Springbok is suddenly deciding to take the risk in hooking up with Gibson again, Todd is nonplussed. “Mel has always been a very good friend of ours, and after his last round of troubles, we let him know that if he needed help, we could offer it to him. And he was perfectly willing to admit that he needed help. We’ve spent a lot of time together, giving our support as he worked on himself and wrestled with his demons. Even though our beliefs may not be the same, he’s also a lovely conversationalist, and fun to be around. And besides, even with what one may think about Mel, what happened to Icon after _Apocalypto_ was not in any way fair to them. It’s very much a ‘help me help you’ situation, as they’re not only helping us in making new movies, we’re helping them get back to where they should be. We’re also helping provide working capital for them to rebuild their original three-continent empire, and possibly even more.”  
  
In order to bring the “help me help you” plan to fruition, Springbok and a group of other investors, including billionaires Larry Ellison and James Packer, are ponying upwards of a combined $5 billion in financing for Icon, with the intent to allow Icon to repurchase their UK distribution group and the library rights to Majestic Films, rebuild their North American operations, and relaunch their television arm, and include better synthesis between the North American, UK and Australian divisions.  
  
Springbok and Icon’s first film under the new deal is _Hacksaw Ridge_ , Gibson’s return to directing after a decade, starring Andrew Garfield as Desmond Doss, a conscientious objector who served in World War II and demonstrated his courage and service to the nation by rescuing wounded soldiers and bringing them back for treatment during the Battle of Okinawa. The story first came to light in a 2004 documentary by Terry Benedict, and work to get it dramatized on screen took a full decade to come to fruition. Robert Schenkkan, writer of the play _All the Way_ , did the script, which was then polished by Randall Wallace and Andrew Knight. Lionsgate’s Summit Entertainment will distribute the film, while other producers will join Springbok, including AI Film, also part of the Icon UK Group. Icon Film Distribution Australia will release the film Down Under.  
  
Both companies have also mapped out their next two intended films in the deal. First there is _The Professor and the Madman_ , a co-production also involving Voltage Pictures, about the work on compiling the Oxford English Dictionary by Scottish professor James Murray, and his friendship with William Chester Minor, an American doctor being treated at Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum, who provided 10,000 words for the project. Gibson will star as Murray in the film, but directing duties will be given to _Apocalypto_ scribe Farhad Safinia, who also co-wrote the script. Icon has had the rights to Simon Winchester’s book _The Surgeon of Crowthorne_ for almost 20 years, but have only now decided to get to work on bringing the story to life. Vertical Entertainment and Bleecker Street share distribution rights, with Icon Film Distribution UK and Icon Film Distribution Australia releasing the film in their respective territories.  
  
The other film in the deal is an adaptation of the manga/anime series _Black Butler_ , who Springbok’s Enima Studios division bought the rights to and helped provide the English dub. Randall Wallace, writer of _Braveheart_ , and who wrote and directed _We Were Soldiers_ for Icon (as well as working with Gibson on the script for a sequel to _Passion of the Christ_ focusing on the Resurrection), is co-writing the script with series creator Yana Toboso, and directing the project, which may end up as two films. Megan Ellison’s Annapurna Pictures have ensnared the rights. The new partnership deal also has an option for Springbok to provide financing for two additional Icon films without joining them as producers.  
  
Icon Film Distribution UK has a bit of a busy slate coming up, with releasing _Mr. Holmes_ (Miramax will release in North America) this year, and the following year will come out with _The Neon Demon_ , _City of Tiny Lights_ and the UK and Ireland distribution of Shane Black's upcoming neo-noir film _The Nice Guys_ (Warners will release the film, featuring Russell Crowe, Ryan Gosling and Kim Basinger, elsewhere next year). Icon Film Distribution Australia likewise has a busy slate of releasing 12 films per year, often selecting prestigious ones. For example, they joined Entertainment One and Universal Pictures Australia in releasing Russell Crowe's directorial debut _The Water Diviner_ back in August, while Warner Bros. will release the film in North America shortly.

* * *

"Springbok Productions Inks First-Look Deal With Universal Cable Productions," by Elizabeth Wagstein, _Variety_ , January 16, 2015 **  
  
**Kurt Cobain and Charlize Theron's Springbok production banner has inked a first-look deal with Universal Cable Productions to develop and produce scripted programming for NBCUniversal’s portfolio of networks.  
  
The company has four projects percolating at NBC, USA, Bravo, and Blockbuster Entertainment, through Universal Cable  
  
The announcement was made by Jeff Wachtel, president and chief content officer, NBCUniversal Cable Entertainment, at Thursday’s Television Critics Assn. press tour in Pasadena.  
  
Laverne McKinnon has also joined Springbok as head of scripted television. McKinnon was formerly exec VP of original programming and development at Epix and senior VP of drama development at CBS.  
  
The pact marks UCP’s growth in diversified programming development, under the direction of exec VP of development Dawn Olmstead.  
  
“I had the pleasure of working with Charlize recently and was determined to keep working with her once I joined Universal Cable Productions,” said Olmstead. “I’m thrilled that Laverne has joined forces with them. Together they are rapidly growing an impressive slate of thought-provoking, stand-out shows. I look forward to a fun, smart, and classy ride with this group.”  
  
Theron commented, “Jeff and Dawn are fantastic partners. They are creative, smart and aggressive. They’ve been so supportive of our ambition and slate of projects. We’re excited to be collaborating with them.”  
  
Springbok's development prospects in this deal include the following:

  * _Diblings_ , a romantic comedy for NBC written by Andrea Abbate (“Accidentally on Purpose”), about a young, uptight business man and a rebellious, purple-haired tattoo artist who will never be together but can’t stand being apart.
  * _The One_ , a drama for Bravo written by Roger Wolfson ( _Saving Grace_ , _The Closer_ ) that revolves around assistants and billionaires and CEOs.
  * _Pandora_ , an action thriller series for Blockbuster Entertainment written by Josh Pate ( _Legends,_ _Surface_ ), about former CIA agent Pandora whose curiosity unleashes worldwide “sleepers” who are the personification of all evils. Jonas Pate ( _Aquarius_ , _Prime Suspect_ ) is set to direct the pilot.
  * _Mythos_ , a drama for USA written by Spenser Cohen and produced by Anna Halberg, is a high-stakes, serialized adventure about myths and a world protected by two opposing orders, each with differing agendas for humanity.



Other projects the banner is grooming include a stop-motion animation series with comic book writer Greg Rucka based on the Web series _The Most Popular Girls in School_ ; _Get Well Soon_ , written by Erika Cervantes and based on the book by Julie Halpern; and an adaptation of the novel _A Life in Men_ by Gina Frangello.

* * *

"Sony Pictures Entertainment Brings Marvel Studios Into The Amazing World of Spider-Man; New Spider-Man Film Will Appear First in an Upcoming Marvel Film Within Marvel's Cinematic Universe," BusinessWire, February 9, 2015 **  
  
**_Marvel's Kevin Feige to Produce Next Installment of Franchise With Amy Pascal_ **  
  
**Culver City, CA, and Burbank, CA – Sony Pictures Entertainment and Marvel Studios announced today that Sony is bringing Marvel into the amazing world of Spider-Man.  
  
Under the deal, the new Spider-Man will first appear in a Marvel film from Marvel's Cinematic Universe (MCU). Sony Pictures will thereafter release the next installment of its $4 billion _Spider-Man_ franchise, on July 28, 2017, in a film that will be co-produced by Kevin Feige and his expert team at Marvel and Amy Pascal, the co-chair and co-CEO of Sony Pictures Entertainment since 1996, who oversaw the franchise launch for the studio 13 years ago, and who has recently started her own side production company, Pascal Pictures. Together, they will collaborate on a new creative direction for the web slinger. Marvel Studios will finance and own 25 percent of the _Spider-Man_ films, Sony Pictures will continue to finance and own the remaining 75 percent, and will wholly distribute and have final creative control of the _Spider-Man_ films. The deal also does not affect ownership of the previous Sony-produced and distributed _Spider-Man_ trilogy directed by Sam Raimi.  
  
Marvel and Sony Pictures are also exploring opportunities to integrate characters from the MCU into future _Spider-Man_ films.  
  
The new relationship follows a decade of speculation among fans about whether Spider-Man – who has always been an integral and important part of the larger Marvel Universe in the comic books – could become part of the Marvel Universe on the big screen. Spider-Man has more than 50 years of history in Marvel's world, and with this deal, fans will be able to experience Spider-Man taking his rightful place among other Super Heroes in the MCU.  
  
Bob Iger, Chairman and CEO, The Walt Disney Company said: "Spider-Man is one of Marvel's great characters, beloved around the world. We're thrilled to work with Sony Pictures to bring the iconic web-slinger into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which opens up fantastic new opportunities for storytelling and franchise building."  
  
"We always want to collaborate with the best and most successful filmmakers to grow our franchises and develop our characters. Marvel, Kevin Feige and Amy, who helped orchestrate this deal, are the perfect team to help produce the next chapter of Spider-Man," said Michael Lynton, Co-Chairman and Co-CEO of Sony Pictures Entertainment. "This is the right decision for the franchise, for our business, for Marvel, and for the fans."  
  
"Sony Pictures and Marvel Studios share a love for the characters in the Spider-Man universe and have a long, successful history of working together. This new level of collaboration is the perfect way to take Peter Parker's story into the future," added Doug Belgrad, president, Sony Pictures Entertainment Motion Picture Group.  
  
"I am thrilled to team with my friends at Sony Pictures along with Amy Pascal to produce the next Spider-Man movie," said Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige. "Amy has been deeply involved in the realization on film of one of the world’s most beloved characters. Marvel's involvement will hopefully deliver the creative continuity and authenticity that fans demand from the MCU. I am equally excited for the opportunity to have Spider-Man appear in the MCU, something which both we at Marvel, and fans alike, have been looking forward to for years."  
  
 _Spider-Man_ , embraced all over the world, is the most successful franchise in the history of Sony Pictures, with the three films having taken in more than $2.5 billion worldwide.  
  
About Sony Pictures Entertainment  
Sony Pictures Entertainment (SPE) is a subsidiary of Sony Entertainment Inc., a subsidiary of Tokyo-based Sony Corporation. SPE's global operations encompass motion picture production, acquisition and distribution; television production, acquisition and distribution; television networks; digital content creation and distribution; operation of studio facilities; and development of new entertainment products, services and technologies.  
  
About Marvel Entertainment  
Marvel Entertainment, LLC, a wholly-owned subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company, is one of the world's most prominent character-based entertainment companies, built on a proven library of more than 8000 characters featured in a variety of media over 75 years. Marvel utilizes its character franchises in entertainment, licensing and publishing.

* * *

"Springbok and Sony Creating _Cruel Intentions_ Series For Blockbuster," by Elizabeth Wagstein, _Variety_ , March 25, 2015 **  
  
**Springbok Productions and Sony Pictures Television have recently announced they are working together on a new digital series for Blockbuster Entertainment, an official sequel series to the 1999 hit movie _Cruel Intentions_. The film, dealing with a scheming pair of step-siblings who work to deflower the daughter of the incoming new dean of their private school, has remained a beloved cult classic since its release, and is quite notorious for helping lead directly to the long and tempestuous marriage of co-stars Ryan Phillippe and Reese Witherspoon, as she became pregnant with their first daughter, Ava, during the shoot.  
  
The film was a modernization of the novel _Dangerous Liaisons_ , which itself was a hit film directed by Stephen Frears in 1988, and starred Michelle Pfeiffer, Glenn Close, John Malkovich, Uma Thurman and Keanu Reeves. In the new telling, unrepentant teen playboy Sebastian Valmont (Phillippe) makes a bet with his stepsister Kathryn (Sarah Michelle Gellar) to see if he can claim of the virginity of the charming and unassuming Annette Hargrove (Witherspoon) before school starts again. If Sebastian succeeds, he will get the chance to bed Kathryn, whereas if he fails, he will lose possession of his beloved Jaguar. And so he sets off to seduce Annette, not prepared to the possibility that he may just in fact actually fall in love with her. At the same time, there is a running subplot where Kathryn moves to help ruin the reputation of naive and trusting Cecille Caldwell (Selma Blair), including a moment where Sebastian gets her drunk and performs oral sex on her in a scene that has certainly not aged well.  
  
The film was written and directed by Roger Kumble, and happened to be the first notable film produced by Neal H. Moritz and his company Original Film, who has also gone on to produce the _Fast and the Furious_ franchise and films such as _XXX_ , starring Vin Diesel. Now, for the Blockbuster series, Kumble and Moritz will both come on board, with Kumble as showrunner and directing the pilot. Original composer Edward Shearmur will also be involved, and several of the more notable tracks in the film, such as The Verve's "Bitter Sweet Symphony" and Placebo's "Every You Every Me", will make a return as well.  
  
The series is an official sequel to the film, set in the present day, where a young man named Bash Casey, claiming to be Annette and Sebastian's son, makes his way to Kathryn, now seemingly having put her scandalous past behind her by running a rehab service, comes to get to know the family he never had, while Kathryn has bigger and grander plans in store, planning to use Bash to fulfill the void Sebastian left behind. Gellar has signed on to reprise her role, while the role of Annette has been recast.  
  
The show will debut on Blockbuster Entertainment sometime in 2016, and Springbok television head Jay Firestone predicts that it will do quite well. "The movie remains quite dear to the hearts of a lot of people who saw it in their adolescent years back in 1999, and it continues to gain lots of new fans to this day. The show is an organic extension of that." When queried as to how this choice of a series to develop can square with the long-held social beliefs of Springbok's founders, Kurt Cobain and Charlize Theron, Firestone seems quite nonplussed. "They both understand that appreciating art that has moments that represent everything they're against doesn't mean that you are supporting or believing in that in reality." This will mark Springbok's second show for the streaming service, having delivered _BoJack Horseman_ to Blockbuster last August.

* * *

"Verizon to Acquire AOL," BusinessWire, May 12, 2015  
  
NEW YORK - Taking another significant step in building digital and video platforms to drive future growth, Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE,NASDAQ: VZ) today announced the signing of an agreement to purchase AOL Inc. (NYSE: AOL) for $50 per share - an estimated total value of approximately $4.4 billion.  
  
Verizon's acquisition further drives its LTE wireless video and OTT (over-the-top video) strategy. The agreement will also support and connect to Verizon's IoT (Internet of Things) platforms, creating a growth platform from wireless to IoT for consumers and businesses.  
  
AOL is a leader in the digital content and advertising platforms space, and the combination of Verizon and AOL creates a scaled, mobile-first platform offering directly targeted at what eMarketer estimates is a nearly $600 billion global advertising industry. AOL's key assets include its subscription business; its premium portfolio of global content brands, including The Huffington Post, TechCrunch, Engadget, MAKERS and AOL.com, as well as its millennial-focused OTT, Emmy-nominated original video content; and its programmatic advertising platforms.  
  
Lowell McAdam, Verizon chairman and CEO, said: "Verizon's vision is to provide customers with a premium digital experience based on a global multiscreen network platform. This acquisition supports our strategy to provide a cross-screen connection for consumers, creators and advertisers to deliver that premium customer experience."  
  
He added, "AOL has once again become a digital trailblazer, and we are excited at the prospect of charting a new course together in the digitally connected world. At Verizon, we've been strategically investing in emerging technology, including Verizon Digital Media Services and OTT, that taps into the market shift to digital content and advertising. AOL's advertising model aligns with this approach, and the advertising platform provides a key tool for us to develop future revenue streams."  
  
Tim Armstrong, AOL chairman and CEO, will continue to lead AOL operations after closing.  
  
Armstrong said, "Verizon is a leader in mobile and OTT connected platforms, and the combination of Verizon and AOL creates a unique and scaled mobile and OTT media platform for creators, consumers and advertisers. The visions of Verizon and AOL are shared; the companies have existing successful partnerships, and we are excited to work with the team at Verizon to create the next generation of media through mobile and video."  
  
The transaction will take the form of a tender offer followed by a merger, with AOL becoming a wholly owned subsidiary of Verizon upon completion.  
  
The transaction is subject to customary regulatory approvals and closing conditions and is expected to close this summer.  
  
Verizon expects to fund the transaction from cash on hand and commercial paper. The company also continues to expect to return to pre-Vodafone transaction credit ratings in the 2018-2019 timeframe.  
  
Transaction advisers for Verizon were LionTree Advisors; Guggenheim Partners; and Weil, Gotshal & Manges. AOL advisers were Allen & Company LLC and Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz.  
  
About Verizon Communications  
Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE,NASDAQ: VZ), headquartered in New York, is a global leader in delivering broadband and other wireless and wireline communications services to consumer, business, government and wholesale customers. Verizon Wireless operates America's most reliable wireless network, with 108.6 million retail connections nationwide. Verizon also provides converged communications, information and entertainment services over America's most advanced fiber-optic network, and delivers integrated business solutions to customers worldwide. A Dow 30 company with more than $127 billion in 2014 revenues, Verizon employs a diverse workforce of 176,200.

* * *

"Ryan Kavanaugh's Relativity Media Finally Files Chapter 11 Bankruptcy," by Dominic Patten and Mike Fleming, Jr., _Deadline Hollywood_ , July 30, 2015

After weeks of public bloodletting, rumors and lawsuits, Ryan Kavanaugh’s Relativity Media filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection today in Manhattan. That stops the clock on the mounting overdue debt payments that have paralyzed the company. What is most surprising about today’s development is that Kavanaugh remains in place atop Relativity — at least for the time being.

“Our board and management team explored a variety of options to refinance Relativity’s debt, and we ultimately determined that the protection afforded by a court-supervised reorganization process will provide additional time and structure to achieve our financial and strategic objectives,” Kavanaugh said in a statement today. With between $500 million and $1 billion in liabilities and $100 million and $500 million in claimed assets, the company filed voluntary petitions for its main Relativity Media holding and the various subsidiaries Thursday afternoon. A first hearing on the Chapter 11 is set for tomorrow in NYC before Judge Michael Wiles.

“We all knew this was coming,” said one agency exec today. “Ryan’s got a lot of lives but they haven’t been real as a distributor for a long time, and in terms of the financing, people just don’t believe the money is there.”

Along with today’s petitions and the appointment of Brian G. Kushner as the Chief Restructuring Officer, Relativity now will enter a sale process. That sale is expected to be concluded by October, the company says. Paperwork to be filed later today will detail how the primary bidder for the company will be “RM Bidder LLC, an entity formed and owned by certain of the Company’s prepetition lenders.” Relativity has also received a $45 million commitment in debter-in-possession financing from some of its lenders to help pay its way through the Chapter 11 process. Being that Chapter 11s rarely go as smoothly as the filers desire, expect to see some more twists and turns in an already weaving tale.

As depressing as it has been, the unraveling of Relativity has been a marvel to watch. The Hollywood creative community has been dismayed to see a buyer and generator of movies and TV fall into precarious shape. At the same time, everybody seems to have a rumor to share about lavish spending by Kavanaugh — tales that are so widespread they are part of his aura. Kavanaugh always has been known as a charmer who is great at schmoozing the money men, a gift that fueled his first major business, co-financing slates for several studios with money from Elliott Management. Unfortunately, the company’s strategy of using research and algorithms to detect target niche audiences and generating moderate-budget movies aimed at them, hasn’t brought nearly enough success for debtors to wait patiently for a turnaround. If you look at the last couple years of film releases — _The Best Of Me, The November Man, Brick Mansions, Three Days To Kill, Out Of The Furnace, Paranoia, House At The End Of The Street, Mirror Mirror,_ etc. — most barely appear to have out-grossed their budgets. The only real hits were _The Fighter_ (Paramount released it) and _Limitless_. While there have been planted and probably bogus stories about equity investments in Relativity that didn’t come to pass, Kavanaugh has been trying frantically to stave off what unfolds today and those debtors face an uncertain future over the money they’ve sunk into the company.

The Chapter 11 filing brings up more questions than it answers. Makers of movies that parked at Relativity have frantically been trying to extricate their films before today’s filing took place. Sources who’ve engaged in these discussions have said that if you funded the film independently and simply made a distribution deal with Relativity, then you were okay. If Relativity has equity in the film, it’s probably another matter and that’s could mire films like the Jared Hess-directed _Masterminds_ and the Halle Berry-starrer _Kidnap_ , because those are subject to the deep freeze of assets that occur when the company goes into Chapter 11. Today the company said it intends to go ahead with the release of those pics.

At question is what happens to the debts of over $320 million to Anchorage Capital and others, who now become creditors in an uncertain situation. At present, Relativity says that “none of these organizational changes affect the non-filing entities Relativity Sports, Relativity EuropaCorp Distribution or Relativity Education.” Still, bankruptcy was the last card for Relativity to play if the 11-year old company hoped to survive at all.

Kavanaugh tried every lifeline but the payday loan service hawked on TV by Montel Williams, but pulling finished films off the release schedule because there was no P&A to release them, and then laying off employees in non-core businesses, was a clear signal that bankruptcy would be the next chapter. For days, the discussion was whether institutional investors would put more capital into the company if Kavanaugh left, and the other talk was that lenders wanted Kavanaugh’s lieutenant Tucker Tooley to play a significant role in the overhaul of the company. Relativity recently hired Blackstone and FTI Consulting to help restructure the company. Rick Wynne and other attorneys at law firm Jones Day, who have been retained by Relativity for a while, were also part of the overhaul attempt.

Still, a reorganization of the company or a takeover by new management could be why pics like _Masterminds,_ _Kidnap_ and the Sundance comedy _The Bronze_ may get released while the company is in bankruptcy, if hurdles are cleared. On the TV side, bankruptcy would also not undue granting of rights and hence there will be no interruption of the upcoming _Limitless_ series on CBS, among the other shows Relativity is a producer on. Projects in development, like D.J. Caruso’s _The Disappointment Room_ , with the company have been told in recent weeks that there would be no objections if they wanted to start shopping elsewhere. The same is true of first look options that Relativity has. While a number of features have cut loose from the company in the last 36 hours, people connected with film projects that Relativity still has a hand in are lawyering up themselves with attorneys specializing in bankruptcy proceedings, we’ve learned.

The questions that remain are, where does investor Ron Burkle fit into all of this? While unaffected now, what happens long term with Red, the distribution pipeline half funded by Relativity and the other half by Luc Besson and Christophe Lambert’s EuropaCorp? On the latter front, sources have said that no Red employees were laid off and that EuropaCorp might simply spend the money paying distribution staff, if Relativity cannot meets its obligations. EuropaCorp formed the joint venture so that it could control its marketing and stop paying distribution fees to studios on hit films that have included _Lucy_ and _Taken_. EuropaCorp’s first film through the Red pipeline will be _The Transporter Refueled_ , a revamp of the Besson-created action franchise, which will open September 4. EuropaCorp, a well funded company, has a slate of homegrown movies and acquisitions coming right behind.

As Kavanaugh struggled to make ends meet, he also grappled with two multi-million dollar lawsuits this month alone from RKA Film Financing. The opportunistically-timed second suit, filed on July 24 and seeking $90 million, called Kavanaugh a “con man,” charging that Relativity misused a 2014 loan and failed to fulfill a payment obligation. The studio denied the charge, and filed a counter claim that RKA’s suit was designed “to extract additional (and significant) fees and concessions from Relativity as the company was negotiating with other lenders in connection with refinancing efforts.”

For years many have wondered about the mysterious collection of loans and equity sales that kept Relativity afloat with few clear successes in film, TV and other businesses including music publishing, sports management, and digital media. The collection of backers over the years variously included One West Bank, Barclays Capital, Macquarie Capital, Ron Burkle’s Yucaipa Co., Paul Singer’s Elliott Management, Catalyst Capital, Colbeck Capital, and Anchorage Capital.

Despite the head-scratching arrangements, last year CEO Kavanaugh was talking big about the possibility of taking Relativity public in the U.S. and Hong Kong with support from Jefferies Group and China’s ICBC Bank. Jefferies also supported Relativity’s last-minute bid of as much as $1.1 billion, mostly in stock, for YouTube power Maker Studios — but lost out to Disney which offered $950 million in cash.

Along with that, Kavanaugh was clearly building toward an IPO that he hoped would solve the company’s funding problems once and for all. It is very possible that Kavanaugh became so consumed with deals and expansion that he did not focus enough on what is really important to make a company like Relativity Media successful: Making hit films and TV shows.

And even if Relativity makes it out of bankruptcy–MGM did so, but it has James Bond and _The Hobbit_ as assets, along with remake rights to a library of classic films–it might well have difficulty building trust back in the lending community, and just as importantly, in the Hollywood creative community because if you can’t get artists and their reps to trust you, a comeback will be impossible.

* * *

"ABC Family To Be Renamed As Freeform," by Nellie Andreeva, _Deadline Hollywood_ _,_ October 6, 2015

ABC Family is changing its name. Starting in January 2016, the Disney-owned TV network targeting younger viewers will be known as Freeform. The network will begin promoting the new branding right away, committing tens of millions of dollars to getting the word out, while the new logo will be unveiled in a few months.

This will be the first time in 27 years that the cable channel won’t have “family” in its name. Launched in 1977 by Pat Robertson, it was named the CBN Family Channel in 1988 and kept the word in as it went through various ownerships, named The Family Channel, Fox Family and then ABC Family. It was believed that there was a clause in the original sale by Robertson that would forbid any future owners from dropping the word “family” from the name though an ABCF rep said that there is no legal obstacle standing in the way of the network changing its moniker to Freeform. Another vestige from the early days of the channel, Robertson’s talk show _The 700 Club_ , will continue to air on the rebranded network. This is also the first major rejiggering of Disney's television group in a decade, after the creation of the rerun-centric ABC Classic and Disney Channel Classic channels, which followed the spinoff of Playhouse Disney as a separate network to make way for the Jetix anime programming block on The Disney Channel

ABC Family’s decision to go for a new name was triggered by a gap in perception, said ABC Family President Tom Ascheim, noting that, according to research, core viewers understand the younger, social-media active brand while non-viewers associate it with wholesome and family-friendly programming. “We wanted to harmonize our content and out brand,” he said. “By achieving that harmony, we would be much better positioned to keep our core viewers and add new viewers.”

Despite dropping the ABC moniker which ties it to the Disney universe, “the Freeform brand will be very much nestled in the Disney ethos — full of optimism and imagination, said Nigel Cox-Hagan, ABCF’s SVP Marketing, Creative and Branding.

The network considered some 3000 names, with Freeform standing out in testing, Ascheim said. “Freeform evokes the spirit and adventure of our audience,” he said.

Cox-Hagan added that the new name also speaks to the fact that the network’s programming is now available on any platform and screen, with viewers encouraged to participate.

By melding two words, free and form, freeform is reminiscent of some of the top social media/video brands whose monikers have a similar structure, facebook, snapchat, youtube. That was not intentional, according to ABCF executives. “It was more about creating a name that can exist on every platform,” Cox-Hagan said.

ABC Family plans to use some of its top franchises, including flagship drama _Pretty Little Liars and_ the popular _25 Days of Christmas_ holiday event, to promote the new branding. Additionally, there will be a big campaign around an as yet-to-be-titled new drama which will be “ambassador for the new brand,” Cox-Hagan said.

Once focused on millennials, ABC Family in April announced that it would now be targeting a new category viewers, “becomers” as some of its viewers were aging out of the millennial demo. Becomers a life stage rather than a generation, including young people aged 14-34 who are in high school, college and the decade that follows and are navigating the time in life when you experience the most firsts – first car, first apartment, first job, first love, first heartbreak.

While the focus will be on becomers, Freeform will also keep popular programming for the entire family, such as _25 Days Of Christmas._ “We want to be inclusive; the idea is to center on young people but include families as becomers have families,” Ascheim said.

Freeform also will continue the ABCF programming push announced this April to double the network’s original programing over the next four years. with more series pickups and renewals expected later this week.

* * *

“Mark Burnett Named President of MGM Television,” by Dave McNary, _Variety_ , December 14, 2015  
  
Mark Burnett has been named president of MGM Television and Digital Group and has signed a five-year contract.  
  
MGM made the announcement Monday and disclosed that it has bought out the remaining 45% interest that Burnett and Hearst Corp held in United Artists Media Group in deals worth $233 million total. Roma Khanna, who had run MGM Television for the past four years, is leaving the company.  
  
Under the deal, Burnett will report directly to Gary Barber, chairman and CEO. Burnett’s and Roma Downey’s interests in United Artists Media Group will be absorbed under the MGM Television Group umbrella.  
  
The deal comes 15 months after MGM acquired a 55% stake in the production companies jointly owned by Mark Burnett, Roma Downey and Hearst Entertainment. At that point, MGM refurbished the United Artists banner to house the investment with Burnett serving as CEO of United Artists Media Group to produce TV shows, films and digital content for a wide range of global platforms. Downey was named president of Lightworkers Media, the faith and family unit.  
  
“Mark Burnett is one of the most successful producers in television and a highly sought-after executive in content creation,” Barber said in a statement issued Monday. “His leadership is the next step in our never-ending quest to expand and grow our television and digital businesses. Combining all of our TV content efforts under the purview of this unparalleled chief is incredibly exciting. Additionally, we believe this synergistic transaction will be very accretive to MGM.”  
  
Burnett and Downey will exchange their 23% interest in UAMG for 1,337,360 shares of MGM stock valued at $90 per share or about $120 million. Hearst will receive $113.5 million in cash for their 22% interest. Springbok Productions, which helped set up the UAMG deal, has no stock shares, but will receive a cash bonus of unknown value.  
  
The transaction is expected to close at the beginning of 2016 and was valued based upon the original deal parameters established when MGM acquired the initial 55% of UAMG in 2014.  
  
The previously announced streaming channel will remain a separate entity controlled by its investors, Downey, Burnett, Hearst and MGM. Downey will serve as chief content officer in addition to her role as Lightworkers president.  
  
“Joining MGM under the incredible leadership of Gary Barber is an exciting new chapter of my television career,” said Burnett. “Demand for quality content is stronger than ever and the opportunities to grow our pipeline and develop projects from the wealth of Intellectual Property in the MGM and United Artists libraries are enormous. There is no better time to be creating premium content for distribution across multiple platforms."  
  
Downey added, “We have entered into an era where faith-based and family programming is experiencing a creative renaissance. I am so excited and grateful to head up the team at Lightworkers Media under MGM. This is an enthusiastic marketplace that inspires us every day to create and curate new, thoughtful and dynamic content for all screens in the distribution landscape.”  
  
MGM also announced that Chris Ottinger has been promoted to president of worldwide television distribution & acquisitions for MGM, reporting directly to Barber. Steve Stark, MGM’s president of television development & production, will continue to oversee all scripted content and will report directly to Burnett in an expanded role.  
  
John Bryan, MGM’s president of domestic television distribution, will continue in his role overseeing domestic distribution.  
  
Burnett has had a long string of successes as a producer of reality series, including _Survivor_ , _The Voice_ , and _Shark Tank_. He’s also recently been increasingly involved in faith-based productions, including 2013’s _The Bible_ , which was a huge ratings hit for the History Channel. His most recent effort, _The Dovekeepers_ , proved a relative disappointment for CBS.  
  
Burnett’s partnership with MGM will prove a boost to the studio’s TV lineup. His library will add significant muscle to their current efforts, which include FX’s _Fargo_ and MTV’s _Teen Wolf_.  
  
Burnett and Downey also became involved with MGM on the movie side in 2014 when they joined MGM-Paramount’s _Ben-Hur_ , set for release on Aug. 12. Burnett joined Sean Daniel ( _The Mummy_ franchise) and Joni Levin as a producer. Downey is an executive producer.  
  
Sidley Austin LLP represented Burnett and Roma Downey in MGM’s buyout.

* * *

"DreamWorks Studios, Participant Media, Springbok Productions, Reliance Entertainment, And Entertainment One Form Amblin Partners, A New Film, Television And Digital Content Creation Company", BusinessWire, December 16, 2015  
  
 _Steven Spielberg, Alibaba Pictures and Universal Also Investors in Amblin Partners_  
  
Universal City, CA – Steven Spielberg, Principal Partner, DreamWorks Studios, Jeff Skoll, Chairman, Participant Media, Jennifer Todd, Chief Executive Officer, Springbok Productions, Anil Ambani, Chairman, Reliance Group, and Darren Throop, President and Chief Executive Officer, Entertainment One (eOne) announced today the formation of Amblin Partners, a new film, television and digital content creation company.  
  
The new company will create content using the Amblin Entertainment, DreamWorks Pictures and Participant brands and leverage their power and broad awareness to tell stories that appeal to a wide range of audiences. Participant Media will remain a separate company that continues to independently develop, produce and finance projects with socially relevant themes. Springbok Productions will also remain independent, and continue to work with and without various other companies on projects in film, television, digital content, video games, staged theatricals, amusement park attractions and music.  
  
Amblin Partners will be led by CEO Michael Wright and President and COO Jeff Small. In addition, Amblin Television will become a division of Amblin Partners and continues to be run by co-presidents Justin Falvey and Darryl Frank, who maintain their longtime leadership roles. They join Producer Kristie Macosko Krieger and President of Production Holly Bario on the film side, to complete Amblin Partners’ senior management team.  
  
David Linde, Chief Executive Officer of Participant Media, and Participant’s narrative feature team, led by Executive Vice President Jonathan King, as well as Ms. Todd and the rest of the Springbok executive team, will work closely with Amblin Partners to develop and produce specific content for the new venture in addition to exploring opportunities for co-productions and other content.  
  
In making the announcement about Amblin Partners, Mr. Spielberg said, “We are thrilled to partner with Jeff Skoll, Participant Media, and to continue our prolific relationship. We are of like minds, as our many collaborations have illustrated, with a mutual commitment to quality, premium entertainment and global vision.”  
  
Mr. Skoll said, “I have had the good fortune of working with Steven for many years. We share a passion for stories that can truly affect change. And this new venture will further Participant’s growth and global impact.”  
  
DreamWorks Studios and Participant Media have collaborated on many Academy Award nominated films such as _Lincoln_ and _The Help_ as well as the critically acclaimed _The Hundred-Foot Journey_ , and the recently released _Bridge of Spies_.  
  
Mr. Spielberg continued, “We also incredibly happy that Jennifer Todd and the people at Springbok Productions are involved in helping Amblin Partners get off the ground. Over a period of fifteen years of released projects, Springbok has demonstrated their passion and talent for pulling off hit after hit, as well a real connection with their audiences that is envied by all in the entertainment industry. They establish that Amblin Partners is for real.”  
  
Ms. Todd said, “Steven Spielberg is one of the absolute living legends of Hollywood, and his presence on a project lifts it considerably. We’ve enjoyed our work with him immensely, and Amblin Partners ensures that it will continue.”  
  
Springbok Productions started its relationship with Mr. Spielberg by helping Amblin Entertainment and DreamWorks Pictures produce the 2005 film _Memoirs of a Geisha_ , and continued thanks to partnering with them on films such as _War Horse_ , _The Help_ , _Lincoln_ , _Whistle Down the Wind_ , _Sailor Moon_ and _Bridge of Spies_.  
  
Mr. Spielberg continued, “We are honored to continue our long-term association with our dear friend, Anil Ambani and his team at Reliance. We have had the opportunity to develop and produce wonderful films thanks to their ongoing support.”  
  
“We are delighted to continue our now seven-years-strong relationship with our valued partner, Steven Spielberg, and to extend this alliance to the formation of Amblin Partners with Jeff Skoll and Springbok. We look forward to the combination of Steven’s passion and integrity with Jeff’s unique socially conscious vision and Springbok’s fusion of both along with top-notch nurturing of their audience to create uplifting and quality content to entertain global audiences,” Mr. Ambani said.  
  
Mr. Spielberg continued, “We are also grateful to Darren Throop and his team at Entertainment One for their contribution to Amblin Partners. We look forward to expanding our relationship.”  
  
“We are delighted to join Steven Spielberg, Jeff Skoll, Springbok and Reliance in launching this unique new venture,” Mr. Throop said. “We continually strive to partner with producers of the highest quality content, and Amblin Partners certainly represents the gold standard.”  
  
Through this new partnership, eOne extends its collaboration into television production and distribution and expands its successful film distribution relationship across additional territories. eOne will handle the direct distribution of Amblin Partners films on a multi-territory output basis in Australia/New Zealand and Spain as well as the United Kingdom and the Benelux, where it previously had a successful output arrangement with DreamWorks Studios.  
  
Amblin Partners has also announced that it will receive additional funding by selling minority stakes in the company to China’s Alibaba Pictures, which will help ensure distribution deals in China, and Universal Pictures, which also entered a five-year first look deal with Amblin Partners projects. The deal will not cancel out or replace a 30-film distribution pact DreamWorks made with The Walt Disney Company back in 2009, of which 19 films have been released to date, which was given no expiration date, and was also allowed to be nonexclusive. As explains Mr. Spielberg, “the Disney deal will still be fulfilled in due time, but they will only receive very specific projects. We’re also going to find projects to continue to give out to other studios that fit them. Universal will receive just about everything else, and it also allows a greater sense of creative freedom in many respects. The same magnet that pulled me to Universal when I first wanted to make movies is bringing me home again to this new exciting relationship.”  
  
Mr. Spielberg’s career has long been tied to Universal Pictures, having made several notable films for them (as director or merely executive producer) such as _Jaws_ , _E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial_ , _Back to the Future_ , _An American Tail_ , _Jurassic Park_ , _Schindler’s List_ , _Casper_ , _Twister_ and _Munich_. He was also instrumental in the creation of Universal Studios Florida and its sister gate, Universal’s Islands of Adventure. Longtime Universal Studios head Ron Meyer said, “We couldn’t be more pleased to be back in business with Steven. Universal is, and always has been, Steven’s home.”  
  
J.P.Morgan Chase structured and arranged the $500 million debt syndication together with Comerica Bank, which served as Co-Lead. Other financial institutions involved included Sun Trust Bank, Union Bank, City National Bank and Bank of America, among others. J.P.Morgan Chase and its predecessors have financed DreamWorks Studios since its inception in 1994.  
  
About Amblin Partners  
Amblin Partners is a content creation company formed by DreamWorks Studios, Participant Media, Springbok Productions, Reliance Entertainment and Entertainment One (eOne). The company develops and produces films using the Amblin, DreamWorks Pictures and Participant banners and includes Amblin Television, a longtime leader in quality programming.  
  
Film projects in various stages of production include: _The BFG_ (with Springbok), and _The Light Between Oceans_ , scheduled for release by Disney in 2016; _The Girl on the Train_ , scheduled for release in October 2016; _A Dog’s Purpose_ , scheduled for release in the first quarter of 2017 and _Ready Player One_ , a co-production between Amblin Partners, Springbok and Warner Bros. Pictures that is currently scheduled to be released in December of 2017.  
  
Upcoming shows from Amblin TV include _All the Way_ , an HBO movie directed by Jay Roach and starring Bryan Cranston, with an airdate to be announced shortly; and _American Gothic,_ a summer series co-produced by Springbok that will air on CBS and begin production in February 2016.  
  
About Participant Media  
Participant Media is a leading media company dedicated to entertainment that inspires and compels social change. Founded in 2004 by Jeff Skoll, Participant combines the power of a good story well told with opportunities for viewers to get involved. Participant’s more than 70 films, including _Spotlight_ , _Contagion_ , _Lincoln_ , _The Help_ , _He Named Me Malala_ , _The Look of Silence, CITIZENFOUR_ , _Food, Inc.,_ and _An Inconvenient Truth_ , have collectively earned 37 Academy Award® nominations and eight wins. Participant has also launched more than a dozen original series including, _Please Like Me_ , Emmy Award-winning _Hit Record On TV with Joseph Gordon-Levitt_ , and _Fortitude_ , for its television network Pivot. Participant’s digital hub, TakePart, serves millions of socially conscious consumers each month with daily articles, videos and opportunities to take action.  
  
About Springbok Productions  
Springbok Productions is an entertainment conglomerate founded by Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain and his wife, actress Charlize Theron, in 1999. Springbok Productions is recognized as a powerhouse with dozens of successful projects in film, television, digital content, video games, staged theatricals, amusement park attractions, and music.  
  
Springbok has established success with acclaimed films such as _Noble Rot_ , _Kill Bill_ , _Monster_ , Christopher Nolan’s _Dark Knight_ trilogy, _Memoirs of a Geisha_ , _The Departed_ , _Borat_ , _Apocalypto_ , James Cameron’s _Avatar_ , _There Will Be Blood_ , _No Country for Old Men_ , _Prometheus_ , _Alien: Awakening_ , _12 Years a Slave_ , _The Wolf of Wall Street_ , _Love and Mercy_ , and Disney’s slate of live action remake of its animated properties. Among the projects Springbok is currently developing are Quentin Tarantino’s _The Hateful Eight_ , Martin Scorsese’s _Silence_ , Mel Gibson’s _Hacksaw Ridge_ and _The Professor and the Madman_ , Joel and Ethan Coen’s _Hail, Caesar!_ and remakes of Disney’s _The Jungle Book_ and _Beauty and the Beast_. Springbok is also known to be circling around a new rendition of _A Star is Born_ and the long-announced biopic projects _Bohemian Rhapsody_ , about the band Queen and its legendary frontman Freddie Mercury, and _Rocketman_ , a “musical fantasy” of the life of Elton John.  
  
Springbok is also a major player in the world of television, having done the revivals of the PBS game shows _Where on Earth is Carmen Sandiego?_ and _Where in Time is Carmen Sandiego?_ , as well as original shows and TV expansions/reboots of films like _Workshop_ , _Ellen: The Second Coming_ , _The Devil’s Advocate_ , _The Chris Farley Show_ , _House, M.D._ (since season two after buying the TV slate of Bad Hat Harry Productions), _American Horror Story_ and _Hannibal_. Coming soon are the likes of _Cruel Intentions_ and _Assassin’s Creed_ to Blockbuster Entertainment in 2016, and _Mindhunter_ the following year; _Westworld_ to HBO in 2016, _American Crime Story_ to FX in 2016, and _Feud: Bette and Joan_ to FX in 2017.  
  
Through its animation division, Denver and Delilah Animation, Springbok is responsible for hit films and TV shows as _Aqua Teen Hunger Force_ , _Squidbillies_ , _Dragon’s Lair_ , _Space Ace_ , _Metalocalypse_ , _Avatar: The Last Airbender_ , _Code Lyoko_ , _The Polar Express_ , the 2009 version of _A Christmas Carol_ , _Rick and Morty_ and _BoJack Horseman_. Springbok is currently at work with Disney, Amblin Partners and Robert Zemeckis on a sequel to _Who Framed Roger Rabbit?_  
  
Its Enima Studios division has created adaptations and English dubs of anime projects such as _Sailor Moon_ , _Death Note_ , _Ghost in the Shell_ , _Inuyasha_ , _Princess Ai_ , _Black Butler_ and the filmography of anime production company Studio Ghibli. This division is working on a film adaptation of _Black Butler_ with Icon Productions and the previously announced and long delayed _Alita: Battle Angel_ with James Cameron and Robert Rodriguez.  
  
Springbok’s work in video games has entertained untold millions, through titles such as the episodic expansions to _Half-Life 2_ , _Portal_ , _Portal 2_ , _Deus Ex: Human Revolution_ , _Epic Mickey_ , _Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two_ , _Prey 2_ , the extremely popular _Call of Duty_ series (since _Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare_ ), the well-received _BioShock_ series, the tie-in game for _Alien: Awakening_ , _Alien: Isolation_ , _Life Is Strange_ , and the highly original _Zophyre_ franchise. Coming down the pike are _Deus Ex: Mankind Divided_ , and _Call of Duty: Ghosts 2_.  
  
Springbok’s stage theatricals division made a big splash with the premiere of Jim Steinman’s _Dance of the Vampires_ , and expanded on with productions such as _Lestat_ , _The Woman in White_ , _Young Frankenstein_ , _Love Never Dies_ , _Blazing Saddles_ , _Dixie Dope, The Book of Mormon_ , _Ghost Brothers of Darkland County_ and the recent production _Hamilton_. Springbok has been intimately involved with Walt Disney Theatrical on productions such as _Tarzan_ , _Mary Poppins_ , _The Little Mermaid_ , _Newsies, Aladdin_ and _The Hunchback of Notre Dame_. Springbok has been involved in touring and regional productions, as well as Vegas spectaculars of productions it didn’t originate, such as _The Phantom of the Opera_ , _The Producers, Starmites_ , _Elisabeth_ , _Whistle Down the Wind_ and _Beauty and the Beast_. Springbok also produced splashy film adaptations of popular musicals such as _The Phantom of the Opera_ , _The Producers_ (financing only), _Sweeney Todd_ , _Whistle Down the Wind_ , _Les Miserables_ and _Into the Woods_. Springbok is currently at work on creating a musical based on Meat Loaf and Jim Steinman’s massively successful _Bat Out of Hell_ trilogy and the theatricals division is also a key component in Springbok’s slate of live action Disney remakes.  
  
Springbok has been long involved in the creative design and work of amusement park attractions, having created works for Walt Disney Imagineering and Universal Creative. Works for Disney include the attraction Alien: Terror Incarnate, helping design the layout of Disney’s America and the redesign of Disney’s Hollywood Studios, and generous assistance in the creation of new gates for Walt Disney World, such as Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge, Pixar Plaza, Marvel's Heroes Landing, and Pandora: The World of _Avatar_. For Universal, Springbok has redesigned and shored up Universal Studios Florida and Universal’s Islands of Adventure, with a revamped Twister…Ride it Out! And Earthquake…The Big One, The Simpsons Ride and the surrounding area, The Wizarding World of Harry Potter, and ensuring the permanence of Kongfrontation, Ghostbusters Spooktacular and Jaws. Springbok also has a massive equity stake in Six Flags New Orleans and helped lead rebuilding efforts to the park after Hurricane Katrina.  
  
Springbok’s record label arm, Exploitation Records, has signed and released the works of dozens of premier acts such as Nirvana, Alice in Chains, Mad Season, Soundgarden, Stone Temple Pilots, Scott Weiland, Aerosmith, Steven Tyler, Skid Row, Ugly Kid Joe, Iggy Pop, Rush, Kansas, Steve Walsh/Streets, Foreigner, Lou Gramm, Styx, Dennis DeYoung, Tommy Shaw, Journey, Steve Perry, Elton John, INXS, Michael Hutchence, Silverchair, ZZ Top, Sammy Hagar/Chickenfoot, The Doors of the 21st Century, Ray Manzarek & Roy Rogers, The Allman Brothers Band, Gregg Allman, Outlaws, Hanoi Rocks, Michael Monroe, Andy McCoy, Blue Oyster Cult, Robert Plant, Them Crooked Vultures, Sleater-Kinney, Evanescence, Amy Lee, Alter Bridge, Creed, Type O Negative, Megadeth, Dethklok, Tenacious D, Dolly Parton, Billy Ray Cyrus, Alison Krauss, The Dixie Chicks, Mary J. Blige, Nas, Ice-T, Method Man, Donald Glover/Childish Gambino, Taraji P. Henson, Richard Marx, Michael Jackson, Prince, David Crosby, Jackson Browne, Bonnie Raitt, Joni Mitchell, Don Henley, Melissa Etheridge, Sarah McLachlan, Tracy Chapman, Indigo Girls, Cat Stevens/Yusuf Islam, Levon Helm, Leon Russell, Alice Cooper, Steve Jones, Andy Taylor, 10,000 Maniancs, Natalie Merchant, Alison Krauss, The Dixie Chicks, Mavis Staples Meat Loaf, Bonnie Tyler, Cyndi Lauper, Wilson Phillips, Drew Sarich/International Victim, Asa Somers/Moneyshot, Hadley Fraser, Ramin Karimloo, RC Cates/“The Stephen Clay Experience”, DAYSIX, Evan Rachel Wood/Rebel and a Basketcase, Michael Crawford, Sarah Brightman, Alfie Boe, Ayumi Hamasaki, Puffy AmiYumi, Dir En Grey, Shonen Knife, Chage & Aska and Princess Ai love Skye.  
  
Starting in 2013, the company launched Springbok Ventures, a venture capitalism group for funding the work of young entrepreneurs, events and programs of social activism, and musical events. Since the company’s inception, Springbok has helped finance dozens of film, television and video game projects that it has no producer’s role in. Through many acquisitions, Springbok contains a formidable and lucrative library of over 600 additional film and television titles represented in home video sales, television broadcast fees and digital distribution rights. Springbok is an S&P 100, Fortune 50 and a Dow 30 company. Outside of Springbok (as well as partial funding stream for the company), Cobain and Theron also have been longtime investors in Planet Hollywood, as well as maintaining equity stakes in Miami Subs Pizza & Grill (alongside a recent equity stake purchase by rapper Pitbull), Roadhouse Grill, Chipotle Mexican Grill, Dan Marino's Town Tavern/Dan Marino's FIne Food & Spirits,, Rock & Brews, Cornerstone Restaurant Group (including Michael Jordan's Restaurant, Michael Jordan's Steak House, MJ23 Sports Bar & Grill, Sol Toro Mexican Restaurant, Chef Bill Kim's Urban Belly, ENO and The Table at Crate), Bubba Gump Shrimp Company, Don Ramon Restaurante Cubano and Barneys New York. The duo have also done ad campaigns for Victoria's Secret, Bath & Body Works, Tommy Hilfiger, Calvin Klein and Ralph Lauren; and both have done ad campaigns as well as provide financial and creative input for Andy Hilfiger's "rock and roll meets fashion" collection Andrew Charles, alongside Aerosmith frontman Steven Tyler and his daughter Chelsea.  
  
About Reliance Entertainment  
Reliance Group, led by Mr. Anil D. Ambani, is among India’s major business houses, with a leadership position in telecommunications, power, infrastructure, financial services, and media and entertainment. The Group has over 250 million customers, serving 1 in every 5 Indians, and has over 8 million shareholders, amongst the largest shareholder families in the world.  
  
Reliance Entertainment is the media and entertainment arm of Reliance Group, and is engaged in the creation and distribution of content across film, television, digital and gaming platforms. Internationally, Reliance Entertainment has partnered since 2009 with iconic film producer and director, Steven Spielberg, in the formation of DreamWorks Studios.  
  
About Entertainment One  
Entertainment One Ltd. (LSE:ETO) is a leading international entertainment company that specializes in the acquisition, production and distribution of film and television content. The company’s comprehensive network extends around the globe including Canada, the U.S., the UK, Ireland, Spain, Benelux, France, Germany, Scandinavia, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. Through established Film and Television divisions, the company provides extensive expertise in film distribution, television and music production, family programming, merchandising and licensing, and digital content. Its current rights library is exploited across all media formats and includes more than 40,000 film and television titles, 4,500 hours of television programming and 45,000 music tracks.

* * *

"Actor Willem Dafoe, Dana Brunetti Set to Run Relativity for Ryan Kavanaugh," by James Rainey, _Variety_ , January 9, 2016  
  
In a blockbuster move intended to resurrect his bankrupt company, Relativity Media CEO Ryan Kavanaugh has reached an agreement to have Willem Dafoe and producer/Trigger Street Productions head Dana Brunetti run Relativity’s beleaguered studio, the company confirmed late Wednesday.  
  
The deal brings Relativity not only a well-renowned actor and an acclaimed producer, but also their Trigger Street Productions, producer of _House of Cards_. The acquisition of the production company marks a major coup for Kavanaugh, who could not prevent his company from sliding into Chapter 11 bankruptcy five months ago.  
  
Relativity has been fighting to raise $100 million in new capital to help complete a reorganization that would revive the moribund movie unit. An alliance of senior creditors has already taken over the company’s television operation. A U.S. bankruptcy court judge is scheduled to consider Kavanaugh’s reorganization plan on Feb. 1.  
  
Dafoe will become chairman of Relativity Studios and Brunetti president as of mid-February, according to the announcement. The duo will oversee all creative content and film production for the company. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.  
  
“I am thrilled to welcome Willem and Dana to Relativity,” Kavanaugh said in a statement. “Willem's incredible success as a star and last ten years as a producer to keep Trigger Street not only afloat, but as the producer of _House of Cards_ speaks for itself. Dana has remarkable instincts and an impressive track record of producing films such as _Casino Jack_ , _The Social Network_ , _Margin Call_ and _Captain Phillips_. Both men share my passion for film and Relativity’s unique 360-degree content engine, and I could not be more excited to partner with such talented professionals.”  
  
Kavanaugh’s reputation has taken a beating in the months leading up to a July 30 bankruptcy filing and since then, as his company registered liabilities of $1.2 billion and assets of $560 million. One financial partner accused him of fraud and a major producer, Neal Moritz, also briefly charged Kavanaugh with misleading him into making a movie deal, before later revoking his accusation. Kavanaugh has denied the allegations against him and responded that his company was the victim of one-time allies who tried to undermine him to take control of Relativity.  
  
Dafoe's own statement acknowledged that many would be stunned by the news he was joining the company.  
  
“They thought we were crazy when we chose to do _House of Cards_ with an online streaming service, and this move with Relativity will be proof for some that we really are crazy,” Dafoe said. But he called the move “an incredible opportunity to make great entertainment” and said he considered it the “next evolution in my career.”  
  
“Having run an independent production company, to pick up the baton from an incredibly talented, if troubled star and keep it alive, to now be able to run a studio is a great challenge,” Dafoe said, “and I’ve learned that in the end it’s the risk-takers that are rewarded.”  
  
Brunetti said Relativity would work to differentiate itself from other filmmakers. “While other studios are focusing on tentpoles and franchises, there is a void with an eager audience for films that are character driven with great storytelling that can be made at a reasonable budget,” Brunetti said in a statement. “Being a disruptor at heart, I look forward to the opportunities that being inside a studio system will present.”  
  
Casting a marquee actor-producer duo in executive leadership roles is unusual in Hollywood, though not unprecedented. Tom Cruise and his longtime producing partner Paula Wagner were recruited to run United Artists in 2006 in what was billed as a boon to the actor’s then-lagging career. But the duo’s initial films did not win over audiences and parent company MGM ran into problems financing its own productions. As MGM backed off its commitment to United Artists, Wagner and Cruise split in pursuit of their own projects, with Wagner later becoming a key member of Springbok Productions.  
  
Kavanaugh had been looking for weeks for new executives to replace the top managers, including president Tucker Tooley, who left the company last year.  
  
Trigger Street was originally founded by Brunetti and Kevin Spacey, who had been best known for his powerhouse work in films such as _Glengarry Glenn Ross_ , _Seven_ , _American Beauty_ and _The Usual Suspects_ (for which he scored a supporting actor Oscar), but his exposure for a history of sexual misconduct against young men put an end to his career. Trigger Street was saved by financing from Springbok Productions, and Dafoe stepped in to take Spacey's role. Indeed, Dafoe's career took quite an upturn by filling out roles that might have originally gone for Spacey, in films like _Casino Jack_ and _Margin Call_ and video games like _Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare_. Along with Brunetti, he has also been a producer known for embracing digital innovation, like an online platform offering feedback for screenwriters, as well as for backing a series of acclaimed films, including _The Social Network_ and _Captain Phillips,_ as well as the hit TV series _House of Cards_ , starring Christian Bale.  
  
A move to Relativity could give the star and his producing partner a larger platform for launching projects. It would help reestablish a measure of credibility for Kavanaugh’s film operation, which has been battered by a series of lackluster films and a financial meltdown that has delayed the release of many others. A Dafoe-Brunetti combination at Relativity would presumably help resolve some of the issues the mini-studio might otherwise have in luring talent to embark on new movies.  
  
Brunetti has worked with Relativity in the past — reaching an accord a year ago to make a movie about the 2012 terrorist attack in Benghazi, an episode that claimed the lives of four Americans and raised a political furor over the American response. The studio bought story rights from some of the principals on the scene of the debacle. The project is separate from the soon-to-be released _13 Hours_ , another Benghazi-themed film, from Paramount.  
  
Brunetti, it is fair to assume, also will want to continue as a producer on other films.  
  
Season four of _House of Cards_ will premiere on March 6.

* * *

"China's Dalian Wanda Group Buys Legendary Entertainment for up to $3.5 billion," by Jonathan Kaiman, _Los Angeles Times_ , January 11, 2016  
  
Chinese conglomerate Dalian Wanda Group has acquired Legendary Entertainment, the Hollywood production company behind _The Dark Knight,_ _Jurassic World_ and _Godzilla_ movies.  
  
At a signing ceremony in Beijing on Tuesday morning, Wanda Chairman Wang Jianlin announced that his company had signed an agreement to buy the Burbank production company for as much as $3.5 billion in cash.  
  
The deal represents the largest acquisition to date of a U.S. production company by a Chinese firm and the latest sign of the deepening ties between Hollywood and the world’s most populous country.  
  
“We already have a big impact in China, however this is not enough — we have to have a global vision,” Wang, China’s richest man, said at a news conference, an elaborate affair featuring flashing lights and long rows of models in sequin dresses.  
  
“We have to have a position in the global industry,” Wang said. “And a few American movie companies have these commanding heights of the movie industry in the world. We want to change this situation and the landscape.”  
  
Wanda, which began as a commercial real estate firm, has grown into a massive  
diversified conglomerate in recent years, with holdings including luxury hotels, entertainment companies and e-commerce firms.  
  
The company’s subsidiary Wanda Cinema Line is China’s biggest cinema chain, with a 14.5% share in the country’s burgeoning box office.  
  
Wang, a former military officer, has made other forays into global markets and into the U.S. entertainment industry. In 2012, he acquired AMC Theatres, North America’s second-largest cinema chain, for $2.6 billion. A year later, Wanda donated $20 million to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for its film museum on the Los Angeles County Museum of Art campus.  
  
Buying Legendary fits Wanda’s goal of creating a global media company and becoming a major player in film production. Wanda is building what it touts as “the world’s largest film and television studio” in the eastern Chinese city of Qingdao.  
  
Spread across more than 400 acres, Wanda Studios Qingdao will house 30 soundstages, a permanent facsimile of a New York City street, a temperature-controlled underwater stage, the country’s largest exterior water tank and postproduction facilities.  
  
The first phase of the studio is scheduled to open in 2017, and the company is seeking to lure both Chinese and international productions to the facility.  
  
On Tuesday, Wang said that the acquisition will help Legendary Entertainment navigate access to the Chinese market, which is protected by a government-imposed limit on the number of foreign films released in the country each year. He brushed off questions about government censorship and allegations that that U.S. film companies have bowed to censors’ demands to gain a piece of the Chinese market.  
  
Wang said many Hollywood studios already incorporate Chinese elements — actors, settings, plot devices — into their films.  
  
“I think this is very normal because U.S. companies want to grab a share in the Chinese high-growth market,” he said. “They should do something to cater to Chinese audiences’ interests — if they don’t, there might be trouble.”  
  
Wang said he was considering an initial public stock offering for a new entity that would combine Legendary with Wanda’s film production business, but he declined to elaborate. An IPO would be difficult in the current climate, given the market volatility in China.  
  
But China’s film market is expected to surpass the size of the North American box office by 2017. The expanding box-office revenue in China — ticket sales surged nearly 50% last year — makes China an increasingly valuable market to U.S. film companies and has prompted a flurry of deals on both sides of the Pacific.  
  
The agreement will leave Thomas Tull, the head of Legendary Entertainment, in place. Tull said that Wanda would not exercise any control over Legendary’s creative content.  
  
“All we know how to do is make things that we want to see — whether that’s giant robots versus giant monsters, or whatever we want it to be, and our fans in China have liked it,” Tull said. “Nothing will change on that front. That’s something that Wanda has been incredibly specific about.”  
  
In a separate conference call, Tull declined to discuss financial details of the transaction or confirm whether he retains an equity stake in the company he founded in 2005. Tull launched his business career running a chain of laundromats and previously headed the media investment firm Convex Group.  
  
“From starting Legendary as an idea and growing into this today is a very proud moment,” Tull said. “It’s an exciting day here in Beijing.”  
  
Japanese telecommunications firm SoftBank Group Corp. and investment firm Waddell & Reed Inc. have also agreed to sell their stakes in the company to Wanda, a person familiar with the transaction told _The Times_ last week.

* * *

"Universal Poised to Close $500 Million Slate Deal With China's Perfect World," by Patrick Frater and James Rainey, _Variety_ , January 22, 2016  
  
China’s Perfect World Pictures will unveil a five-year, $500 million movie slate funding deal with Universal Pictures in the coming days, sources familiar with the pending transaction said. The move would make the Shenzhen stock exchange-listed games and TV production group the latest Chinese company to invest significant funds in a Hollywood entertainment giant.  
  
The new collaboration follows barely a week after the announcement that Dalian Wanda would pay $3.5 billion for leading Hollywood producer Legendary Entertainment. The Universal/Perfect World partnership could be revealed as early as next week, sources said.  
  
The $500 million investment is said to be split evenly between debt and equity contributions to the Universal movie slate. Sources familiar with the deal said Perfect World’s investment would get it a 25% share of most, but not all, of the films released by Universal, which led all U.S. studios in box office returns in 2015, with films like _Jurassic World_ , _Furious 7_ , _Pitch Perfect 2_ , and _Minions_.  
  
The investment will be labeled a “strategic partnership,” though it appears essentially to be a conventional co-financing agreement. And, like previous such arrangements in Hollywood, it is believed that Universal has excluded several sure-fire hit franchises. Perfect World will not be able to invest in the _Fast & Furious_ action pictures or the future _Minions_ slate, the sources said. Also excluded are other titles from _Minions_ producer Chris Meledandri’s Illumination Entertainment, which has _The Secret Life of Pets_ coming up.  
  
Perfect World will share risk and reward on less-established titles. The deal does not give Perfect World rights in China to the studio’s revenue sharing imports, and will not have great impact on Universal’s marketing and distribution team, set up in China in 2014. (Universal is also the studio releasing partner on Legendary’s output.)  
  
Perfect World officials did not speak publicly about its move into the American film industry. A Universal spokesperson declined to comment.  
  
Perfect World Pictures is best known as a television production company, though it also has a track record in film investment and distribution. It was producer-distributor on 2009 romantic comedy _Sophie’s Revenge_ , starring Zhang Ziyi, 2011 Chinese hit _Love Is Not Blind_ and art-house favorite _The Piano In A Factory_. It was also the Chinese co-distributor on _Divergent_ , _Insurgent_ and _Ender’s Game._ This month it is a co-distributor on 2013 Ron Howard motor racing drama _Rush_ , imported for a flat fee release.  
  
Perfect World Pictures’ shares climbed 9.8% on Friday, though there was no indication the jump was connected to the Universal pact, which remained under wraps. The deal was believed to have been offered to other Chinese entertainment and finance groups, before the talks with Perfect World came to fruition.  
  
The Universal deal is a big step up for Perfect World Pictures, but it may help the company’s other ongoing corporate operations. Earlier this month (Jan. 6, 2016) Perfect World Pictures announced that it would pay $1.82 billion (RMB 12 billion) to buy up its larger and better-known online gaming affiliate Shanghai Perfect World Technology, a company which until last year was listed on the NASDAQ stock market in North America. Like several other Chinese companies, it chose to delist from the U.S. stock markets, with the ambition of relisting in China where ratings for entertainment firms are still sky high.  
  
Perfect World Pictures also said that it would raise $760 million (RMB 5 billion) through an issue of new shares to four investors, including group chairman Michael Chi Yunfeng. At the time it described the new funds as being earmarked for “film and TV program investment and game development, operation and distribution.”  
  
Perfect World Pictures currently has a market capitalization of $1.9 billion (RMB 12.5 billion) and stands on a multiple of 54 times historical 2014 profits.  
  
For the 2015 financial year, Perfect World Pictures has advised that it will achieve net profits of $39.5-$44 million (RMB 260-289 million.) Perfect World Technology has warranted that its net profits in 2016 will be $115 million (RMB 755 million), rising to $182 million (RMB 1.2 billion) in 2018.  
  
The deal is in line with an ongoing trend of investment by major Chinese firms into Hollywood entities and Hollywood film slates. Corporate investments in the past 18 months have included diversified conglomerate Fosun’s investment in Jeff Robinov’s start-up Studio 8, the Warner-China Media Capital joint venture Flagship Entertainment as well as Wanda’s acquisition of Legendary.  
  
Film finance deals include Huayi Brothers Media’s backing of an 18-picture slate from MGM/United Artists/Orion Pictures as well as some pictures from Annapurna Pictures, Hunan Television’s co-investment in a slate of Lionsgate pictures and Bona Film Group’s November deal to invest in a package of 20th Century Fox titles, through a venture with the Seelig Group. Other recent single picture investments have included China Film Group’s investment in _Fast & Furious 7_.

* * *

"Mel Gibson Grabs the Steering Wheel Once More," by Nancy Tartaglione, _Deadline Hollywood_ , February 15, 2016  
  
Effective today, Mel Gibson and Bruce Davey's Dendy Icon Group is once again complete. Thanks to an infusion of $7.5 billion from the likes of Springbok Productions, James Packer, Larry Ellison, Warren Buffett and Soros Capital Fund Management, Icon Productions has officially reclaimed the Icon UK Group (except for Access Industries' AI Film Productions), including Icon Film Distribution UK, Icon Entertainment International, the Majestic Films and Television Library, and the executives in these divisions as part of their umbrella, alongside Icon Productions proper and Icon Film Distribution Australia, including the Dendy Cinemas chain Down Under. The leftover money now are operating costs for Icon to restart its North American film and television divisions. Gibson will be president of the new Icon, with Bruce Davey remaining chairman of the board, Mark Gooder as COO and Vicki Christianson as CEO. All UK and Australian executives will remain in their jobs, and Icon UK and Icon Australia's output and deals will not be affected, and operate with considerable autonomy.  
  
The news comes right on the heels of Icon's recent reteaming with Springbok for a three-picture deal and Gibson's return to directing with the forthcoming film _Hacksaw Ridge_. All of the above represents Gibson's latest chance for a comeback after a troubled history over the past decade. This thus raises the stakes considerably for Gibson to ensure that the third time's the charm, as his last attempt at redemption did not go off so well.  
  
"I'm very pleased with the development and the rebuilding of the Dendy Icon family," Davey said in a statement. "It feels like a homecoming, and I know that the new Icon is stronger than the old one. Mel and I will churn out passionate projects and make the most of this chance."  
  
"Mel Gibson and Bruce Davey are an impeccable team in Hollywood," Christianson said. "I've always been so blessed to have been involved with Icon at some capacity since its founding, and I am happy to help lead it into the future."  
  
After _Ridge_ , Icon will move right on to production of _The Professor and the Madman_ , which will begin lensing in England this summer. Icon is already looking at ideas with which to relaunch its television production slate, including a possible deal with Blockbuster Entertainment.

* * *

"Universal and Perfect World Pictures of China Complete $500 Million Slate Deal," by James Rainey, _Variety_ , February 17, 2016  
  
Perfect World Pictures and Universal Pictures have announced the completion of a $500 million slate financing deal running up to five years that will make the Beijing-based maker of films, television programs and online games a major investor in one of Hollywood’s most successful studios.  
  
Word of the deal came in an announcement from Jeff Shell, chairman of Universal Filmed Entertainment Group, and Michael Chi, chairman of Perfect World. It will cover the co-financing of 50 films or last for five years, with specific pictures within the deal to be announced later. The pact will not alter Legendary Entertainment’s co-financing of some Universal films. Legendary was recently purchased by another Chinese firm, Dalian Wanda.  
  
The cementing of the arrangement — the first time a Chinese company will invest in a multiyear slate deal — comes a month after it was first revealed in _Variety,_ marking another in a series of significant investments by Chinese concerns in Western entertainment operations. The deal came to light just days after Dalian Wanda revealed its $3.5 billion deal for Thomas Tull’s Legendary Entertainment.  
  
The $500 million investment is said to be split evenly between debt and equity contributions to the Universal movie slate. Sources familiar with the deal said Perfect World’s investment would get it a 25% share of most, but not all, of the films released by Universal.  
  
Universal’s Shell said he was “delighted” with the deal and added: “With Perfect World’s history of success in the Chinese market, we look forward to exploring other opportunities to work together.”  
  
“Building out our film business and expanding into international markets are two of the most important initiatives for Perfect World,” Chi said. “Universal has had a stellar last few years, and with a slate that boasts many titles that we know will thrive in the marketplace, we are confident our partnership with them is a solid step in the right direction. Our partnership with Universal is not just about making movies together, but also about the opportunities that exist in the synergy across our multiple business lines to maximize strategic value for all involved.”  
  
Perfect World Pictures is best known as a television production company, though it also has a track record in film investment and distribution. It was producer-distributor on 2009 romantic comedy _Sophie’s Revenge_ , starring Zhang Ziyi; the 2011 Chinese hit _Love Is Not Blind_ ; and arthouse film _The Piano in a Factory_. It was also the Chinese co-distributor on _Divergent_ , _Insurgent_ and _Ender’s Game_. This month, it is a co-distributor on the 2013 Ron Howard racing drama _Rush_ , imported for a flat fee release.  
  
The Universal deal is a big step up for Perfect World Pictures, but it may also help the company’s other ongoing corporate operations. Last month, the company announced that it would pay $1.82 billion (RMB 12 billion) to buy up its larger and better-known online gaming affiliate Shanghai Perfect World Technology, a company that until last year was listed on the Nasdaq stock market in North America. Like several other Chinese companies, it chose to delist from the U.S. stock markets, with the ambition of relisting in China, where ratings for entertainment firms are still sky high.  
  
Perfect World Pictures also said that it would raise $760 million (RMB 5 billion) through an issue of new shares to four investors, including group chairman Michael Chi Yunfeng. At the time it described the new funds as earmarked for “film and TV program investment and game development, operation and distribution.”  
  
Perfect World Pictures currently has a market capitalization of $1.9 billion (RMB 12.5 billion).  
  
Major Chinese firms have been pouring big money into Hollywood entities and Hollywood film slates. Corporate investments in the past 18 months have included diversified conglomerate Fosun’s investment in former Warner Bros. Studios head Jeff Robinov’s start-up Studio 8, the Warner-China Media Capital joint venture Flagship Entertainment as well as Wanda’s acquisition of Legendary.  
  
Film finance deals include Huayi Brothers Media’s backing of an 18-picture slate from MGM/United Artists/Orion Pictures as well as several films from Annapurna Pictures, Hunan Television’s co-investment in a slate of Lionsgate pics and Bona Film Group’s November deal to invest in a package of 20th Century Fox titles, through a venture with the Seelig Group. Other recent single picture investments have included China Film Group’s investment in _Fast & Furious 7._  
  
Perfect World was represented by Manatt, Phelps & Phillips. Universal Pictures was advised on the transaction by the Raine Group and represented by Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher.

* * *

"beIN Media Group Acquires Miramax," BusinessWire, March 1, 2016  
  
 _Acquisition confirms beIN Media Group’s position as one of the fastest growing global media and entertainment companies, Miramax to continue operating as an independent film and television studio under new ownership_  
  
DOHA / LOS ANGELES- beIN Media Group (“beIN Media”) announced today that it has acquired 100% of Miramax, one of the most distinguished and recognizable brands in entertainment and synonymous with award-winning and original content.  
  
Selling shareholders include Qatar Investment Authority (“QIA”) and Colony Capital.  
  
In 2016, Miramax will invest in and co-distribute several upcoming feature films including _Bad Santa 2_ , _Bridget Jones’ Baby,_ and _Southside With You_ , as well as the television show _From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series_ heading into its third season. Miramax returned to production of new films with 2014’s _Sin City: A Dame to Kill For_. Last year Miramax’s slate included the critically acclaimed _Mr. Holmes_ , one of the year’s most successful independent films, and the comedy hit _The Wedding Ringer_.  
  
Additionally, Miramax continues to thrive with its library, which (while it remains under the physical ownership of Disney and has been rebranded to their Touchstone Pictures division, but which has been securitized by the current company to help ride the growing trends of the past decade) holds hundreds of titles that collectively have garnered hundreds of Academy Award nominations and several dozen Oscars, and includes films such as _Sex, Lies and Videotape_ , _My Left Foot_ , _Cinema Paradiso_ , _Clerks_ , _The Crow_ , _Heavenly Creatures_ , _Reservoir Dogs_ , _Pulp Fiction_ , _Jackie Brown_ , _The English Patient_ , _Shakespeare in Love_ , _Bridget Jones’ Diary_ and _The Talented Mr. Ripley_. Films that Disney developed under Touchstone Pictures but considered spiritually Miramax films include _Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back_ , _Kill Bill_ , _Chicago_ , _The Libertine, Cold Mountain, Gangs of New York_ and _Gone Baby Gone_.  
  
Commenting on the transaction, Nasser Al-Khelaïfi, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of beIN Media Group, said: “We are extremely excited to have achieved this key milestone within our strategy. Miramax is a successful film and television company, providing a strong and recognizable brand, a unique library and industry expertise that complement beIN Media Group’s plans to grow across the entertainment industry and develop new content production. As part of beIN Media Group, we will support Miramax in continuing to build this exciting platform. We very much look forward to working with the Miramax team.”  
  
“Miramax is one of the most iconic film brands in the world, housing a collection of the most celebrated and valued content libraries and management teams in Hollywood. In 2010, we were given the opportunity to shepherd the creative genius of the Weinsteins and Disney into the 21st century and share their mastery with the world by expanding distribution on a global basis through theatrical, digital and online providers. By riding the secular wave into online streaming via securitization with Disney’s permission, we successfully returned our partners’ capital many times over and safeguarded the passion, dedication and hard work of the library’s true artistic masters. Colony has done its job in repositioning the company to independent prominence and profitability as not only a library but a renowned producer of independent film and television. Our sale to beIN will provide not only additional stewardship for these irreplaceable films but a best of class strategic owner focused on expansion of production and the betterment of the Miramax brand. We are fortunate to have found Nasser Al-Khelaifi and beIN Media Group as the best of global class curator for the purpose of Miramax’s growth and continued legacy,” said Thomas J. Barrack, Jr., founder of Colony Capital.  
  
Steve Schoch, CEO of Miramax said: “This is an exciting time in the evolution of our company, and we are thrilled to be a part of beIN Media Group. Miramax’s growing 2016 slate is a testament to the incredible work of the team thus far to build on the proud Miramax legacy. In concert with beIN leadership, we look forward to further expanding our film and television output, broadening our distribution capabilities and fortifying our position as the premiere independent studio brand.”

* * *

"Relativity Relaunch: Willem Dafoe Nixes Chairman Role, Dana Brunetti Sets Deal," by Brent Lang and Cynthia Littleton, _Variety_ , March 16, 2016  
  
In a last-minute shift in Relativity Studio’s post-bankruptcy plans, Willem Dafoe has opted out of assuming the chairmanship of the embattled studio, court filings reveal.  
  
Relativity Media said it has formally inked a deal for Dafoe's producing partner, Dana Brunetti, to be president of production running film and TV operations. Relativity also claimed to have submitted documentation to the bankruptcy court proving that it has raised $100 million in new funding. However, at several points both before and after a string of film flops and debt obligations pushed Relativity into bankruptcy last year, the company has claimed to have secured financing that it ultimately failed to enlist.  
  
In a declaration, Brunetti said he looked forward to partnering with Relativity founder Ryan Kavanaugh and said that as soon as the company was out of Chapter 11, he would fill out his production team and development slate.  
  
“I believe that the company has tremendous potential, and I welcome the challenge to take the company to the next level,” said Brunetti.  
  
Brunetti added that at Relativity, he planned to make “character driven, compelling stories…for mass audiences.” He will share greenlight authority with Kavanaugh, according to an employment agreement.  
  
In his own statement attached to Brunetti’s declaration, Dafoe said, “Now that I have a much deeper understanding of the specifics of the amount of work that will be needed to shepherd the company through this transition I have concluded it is work that I neither have the time nor the wherewithal to take on.”  
  
It is not clear if Dafoe’s exit will imperil Relativity’s emergence from bankruptcy. U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Michael Wiles had made signing deals with both Dafoe and Brunetti a condition for approving the company’s exit from Chapter 11, as well as proof of its financing.  
  
There had been mutterings that Dafoe was wavering in his commitmentto run the studio. For sure, the actor does have a full dance card. In the coming months, he will complete roles in _Billionaire Boys Club_ alongside Taron Egerton and Ansel Elgort, as well as Edgar Wright’s TriStar action-comedy _Baby Driver_. He is also being slated to perform in the DC Extended Universe's _Aquaman_ , a massive role if there ever was one. Other industry sources say Dafoe was concerned about the financial health and future prospects of the company, as well as the amount of work needed to get the studio back on its feet.  
  
Through their Trigger Street label (though Dafoe's role was inherited from the disgraced Kevin Spacey), Brunetti and Dafoe have produced such films as _The Social Network_ and _Captain Phillips_ , as well as the hit Blockbuster Entertainment series _House of Cards_. Like Dafoe, Brunetti has his own, non-Relativity commitments.  
  
The plan to have Dafoe serve as chairman came together as Brunetti began discussions with Kavanaugh last October. When the opportunity first was broached, the pair were intrigued by the possibility and thought it made sense to do it together, just as they have been partners in Trigger Street Productions.  
  
But as they got down to the nitty-gritty of mapping out the new Relativity Studios, it became clear that Dafoe's commitments to shooting numerous movies would make it impossible for him to fulfill the chairman role at what is essentially a startup venture.  
  
Moreover, there is no doubt that Brunetti has been the dominant force in running Trigger Street after having lost his founding partner, and doing the heavy lifting of producing its movies and TV shows. So while Dafoe would have been a familiar face that might have helped Relativity in the investment community, Brunetti brings the most important skills needed to relaunch the studio from its post-bankruptcy ashes. It’s unclear if Relativity and Brunetti will seek to recruit or a new chairman or simply redirect the resources that would have gone to Dafoe’s salary into funding for projects and infrastructure.  
  
As part of the deal with Brunetti, Relativity will license the Trigger Street brand, Brunetti said in a filing. Earlier, Relativity had claimed that it acquired the production company, only to backtrack in court hearings.  
  
Sources familiar with the situation say Brunetti expects to take virtually all of the Trigger Street staff with him to Relativity, in addition to hiring more executives. In essence, Trigger Street will essentially dissolve into the new Relativity, with Dafoe surely retaining some financial interest in existing Trigger Street projects. Sources said that Dafoe remains supportive of Brunetti’s decision to pursue the Relativity offer.  
  
But larger questions remain. Ever since news of Relativity’s courtship of Dafoe and Brunetti broke in January, industry insiders have wondered why the pair would be attracted to working with Relativity given the bankruptcy and the seemingly ever-present drama surrounding Kavanaugh.  
  
Sources said Brunetti’s interest is driven by the desire to build a new studio entity from the ground up. He’s known to have had executive job offers in the past at higher-profile companies but preferred to remain a free-agent producer rather than be plugged in to an existing operation. At Relativity, Brunetti will have the chance to shape the organization as he sees fit, bringing all of his in-the-trenches experiences as a producer. And sources said he is also receiving a modest equity stake in the new-model Relativity Studios, which gives him added incentive that wouldn’t likely be available at a major studio.  
  
Brunetti’s deal with Kavanaugh is contingent on the parent organization delivering the promised funding of $100 million. If that doesn’t materialize, it’s understood that Brunetti can walk. Sources said Brunetti remains confident that Kavanaugh will make good on the funding. He’d better hope so, sources said, as Trigger Street began preparing for the segue to Relativity by winding up its first-look deals with Fox and Sony Pictures TV. Brunetti has also been busy hammering out carve-out agreements for existing projects, and wrapping up his obligations to others.  
  
Sources said Relativity’s hope is to gradually build up to a volume of between six to 12 releases a year, with Brunetti maintaining a hands-on role as a producer. But for now, no new material can be put into play until the bankruptcy is completed and the new money is in place. The first order of business after the relaunch will be to devise release strategies for the handful of completed films that have been in bankruptcy limbo for months, including _Mastermind_ and _Kidnap_.  
  
Weighed down by film flops such as _Out of the Furnace_ and _Brick Mansions_ , Relativity filed for bankruptcy protection last summer, citing $1.2 billion in liabilities and assets with a book value of just $560 million. Last fall, its television business was auctioned off to a group of hedge funds that include Anchorage Capital, Luxor Capital and Falcon Investment Advisors. In bankruptcy, the studio has been able to wipe roughly $630 million from its books.  
  
Court filings reveal that Joseph Nicholas, a Chicago investor who will oversee the company’s business operations, has agreed to provide $35 million in debt financing. The studio will also receive a $40 million loan from Midcap Financial Trust. At the same time, Relativity said today it has secured $400 million in film financing from Michael Wexler and Tove Christensen’s Maple Leaf Films and that the two companies have executed a binding agreement for Maple Leaf Films to finance 75% of future Relativity Media films on an annual basis for the next five years.

Maple Leaf Films is part of the Maple Leaf Capital Group of companies focusing on hedge funds, real estate, and film finance through their offices in London, Hong Kong, and Los Angeles. Maple Leaf began its involvement in film finance in 2005, as producer and financier providing equity, debt, or both, for small-to-medium-sized independent films. It has, however, not updated its website for several years (like three to four).

* * *

"Relativity Emerges From Bankruptcy After Judge Rules It Has Met Conditions," by David Lieberman, _Deadline Hollywood_ , March 18, 2016

Relativity Media is about to stand on its own again after U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Michael Wiles agreed that it had fulfilled two conditions that he had set last month for the company to exit Chapter 11 protection.

“The testimony is uncontradicted that the (plan) is reasonable,” he said at a hearing this morning. “Everybody recognizes that the emerged company will be highly leveraged and forecasting films is an iffy proposition.”

Wiles added that he “cannot be complimentary enough or congratulate the company enough” for resolving the huge array of challenges to, and questions about, Relativity’s viability since July when it filed for Chapter 11 protection.

In early February, he approved Relativity’s plan to exit from bankruptcy protection with two contingencies. It had to supply proof that it had locked up $80 million in additional funding that it told the court was all but in hand. It also had to persuade him that actor Willem Dafoe and his business partner Dana Brunetti (Dafoe joined with him to take control of Trigger Street Productions, the shingle founded by Brunetti and disgraced actor Kevin Spacey, which Relativity bought this year) were locked in to run the studio, which Relativity also presented as virtually a done deal.

But instead of the original funding agreeent, Relativity offered $75 million from new deals with MidCap Financial Trust (for $40 million) and CEO Ryan Kavanaugh’s financial partner Joseph Nicholas (for $35 million). It also presented an employment contract with Brunetti — but not his partner Willem Dafoe, who bowed out early this month. The judge accepted the changes.

Nicholas testified today that the company expects investment cash to start rolling in. It is “planning on engaging with bankers to work on the [capital] raise immediately. Already we have interested parties contacting us. They want to start a dialogue as soon as we emerge” from bankruptcy.

Relativity advisor Marni Wieshofer told the court that the funding deals it offered today were “superior” to the ones presented in February. They allow for more lucrative distribution fees and terms for home video.

“That’s quite significant,” she said.

Wieshofer also said, in response to a question from Wiles, that she’s confident about the company’s assumptions about film revenues. “Nobody can pick them,” she said about predicting hits and anticipating box office sales. “But you do your best on that.”

The revenue assumptions pushed back Relativity’s first release from May to later this year. “That gives the company some runway,” she said. “Overall it won’t hurt you over a three-year period.” She added that “TV is small to start, but growing.”

The financial plan assumes that additional equity will come in April. If it doesn’t then it’s no problem. “You can delay release of films…I also have various conservatism in the model.”

In other matters, Relativity told Wiles that it had agreements that “at least conceptually resolve” the few remaining objections to its exit plan.

Backers of an update to a 1994 film _The Crow_ are still negotiating with Relativity about questions regarding their rights over the property.

CIT Bank also is seeking to clarify MidCap’s place in the pecking order of Relativity creditors, and its claims on the studio’s collateral.

* * *

"Steven Spielberg On DreamWorks' Past, Amblin's Present, and His Own Future," by Kim Masters, _The Hollywood Reporter_ , June 15, 2016  
  
With his 29th movie, _The BFG_ , about to debut, Hollywood's most successful and arguably greatest director answers questions about what happened at DreamWorks, what will happen at Amblin Partners and what (and who) will be the focus of his vast ambitions moving forward (hint: Harrison Ford's Indiana Jones does not die).  
  
For 20-plus years, Steven Spielberg and NBCUniversal vice chairman Ron Meyer have shared lunch once a month at the Commissary on the Universal lot. They kept it up even as Spielberg, along with Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen, launched DreamWorks SKG in 1994 and had no formal business ties to the studio that launched his career. The tradition carried on after DreamWorks sold itself to Paramount in 2005, and then after DreamWorks made a deal to distribute its films through Disney in 2008. And they will continue now that Spielberg and his company — in its latest iteration as Amblin Partners — finally have circled back, striking a distribution deal in December 2015 with Universal, the home that Spielberg, throughout it all, never physically left.  
  
You would like to listen in on one of these meetings between two Hollywood silverbacks who've done far more than survive in the jungle that is the entertainment business. "We've both been around for about 50 years, and we know pretty much all the players past and present," says Meyer, 71. "We talk about it all, from politics to Shoah and everything in between." Spielberg, who turns 70 in December, puts it this way: "Ronnie and I both suffer from a disease called terminal nostalgia."  
  
Hollywood certainly has changed, as Spielberg and George Lucas lamented in a much-discussed August 2013 talk at USC. There, Spielberg noted that _Lincoln_ almost had to be an HBO movie. "Steven Spielberg and George Lucas can't get their movies into a theater," marveled Lucas, while Spielberg warned of a pending "implosion where three or four or maybe even a half-dozen megabudget movies are going to go crashing into the ground, and that's going to change the paradigm." Today, Spielberg still believes that the superhero genre will not last as long as the Western, which had a nearly-70-year run.  
  
For its part, DreamWorks has passed through rough financial waters, but Spielberg sails on — still the industry's titan, still commanding extraordinary deals. For serving as executive producer on _Jurassic World_ , he's said to have made more money than Universal. He still collects 2 percent of all ticket revenue at the Universal theme parks as well as a portion of park concession receipts. _Forbes_ estimates his wealth at $3.6 billion.  
  
But Spielberg's return to Universal is complex. For one, while Universal has taken on a minority stake in Amblin Partners, it isn't investing a considerable amount of money in Amblin Partners' films. For another, the company still will have to negotiate, movie by movie, for good release dates and a satisfactory marketing spend. In the no-sure-thing box office of today, even arguably the greatest living director is forced to play by new rules.  
  
And while no one ever doubts Spielberg's productivity, some might wonder how much attention he will give to his new company. Even as he has established Amblin Partners at Universal, he has committed to make _Ready Player One_ at Warner Bros. Amblin Partners will get his midbudget historical drama _The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara_ , and then he'll direct the fifth Indiana Jones movie for Disney. Spielberg says he's "super excited" about that movie, tentatively dated for July 2019: "I think this one is straight down the pike for the fans." He won't reveal plot details, except this: "The one thing I will tell you is I'm not killing off Harrison [Ford] at the end of it." (Amblin Partners is not a financial participant.) And then, there's a potential remake of _West Side Story_ — which would be a Fox/MGM co-production — for which Tony Kushner is working on a script. Spielberg has dreamt of adapting it "for decades," securing rights after trying to get them 15 years ago.  
  
In truth, the DreamWorks saga, which Spielberg portrays as having completed a satisfactory arc, hardly is straightforward. Launched with giddy optimism as a full-service studio, DreamWorks struggled for financing — and for hits — for much of its existence and now is subsumed as a label under the new Amblin Partners banner.  
  
Over the DreamWorks years, there have been issues over what Spielberg owed his backers (like Paul Allen and Reliance Entertainment) and whether the company paid in full — yet Spielberg seems unaware that some associates have raised such questions. As he sees it, he did everything for DreamWorks and certainly he made a lot of money for a lot of people. But he also followed his artistic impulses, working on projects for others in DreamWorks' darkest hours.  
  
For years, everyone has wanted all of Spielberg and taken what they could get. Spending limited time with him, I get the impression that he lives in a kind of bubble — protected by the privilege that comes with money, by aggressive partners, by loyal underlings and by the deference accorded to the most successful filmmaker in Hollywood history.  
  
Spielberg is thoughtful and unassuming in conversation, though he draws a line forcefully when he doesn't want to answer a question. ("No" to talking politics — though he allows that he supports Hillary Clinton.) But even when he does answer in words that feel completely sincere, there is a kind of force field around him — invisible and not easily penetrated.  
  
With his latest movie, _The BFG_ opening July 1, Spielberg is prepping _Ready Player One_ ; the Warners thriller is scheduled to open in March 2018. Before that, he expects to finish _Edgardo Mortara_ , currently set for release through Universal in November 2017. With Amblin Partners freshly financed by Jeff Skoll's Participant Media, Springbok Productions, Reliance and Entertainment One, Spielberg is in the rare position to greenlight his own midbudget adult historical drama. He has other films on the runway, and there's more — TV shows, theme park attractions, philanthropic projects, consulting on a virtual-reality venture. Spielberg remains a genius-level multitasker.  
  
"I don't know that there's a time when he's been more prolific," says Katzenberg. "Make no mistake — he's still the master storyteller of our time. If you look at the profitability and excellence of his work, he has no peer. You can take James Cameron, Chris Nolan or Martin Scorsese — all brilliant and in many ways his peers, but look at quality and consistency, and no one compares." Also, Katzenberg says that with Spielberg's seven children grown, "It's been decades since he's been as free as he is today." (The kids, including one each from his and wife Kate Capshaw's previous marriages, range in age from 19 to 39.)  
  
With _The BFG_ , Spielberg checks an entry off his bucket list: It's his first movie for the original Walt Disney Pictures label. "I have directed films for every studio in Hollywood except for Walt Disney — until now," he says. "Disney was truly, when I was a kid, my singular inspiration and also the source of most of my nightmares." Yes, he means Bambi and Dumbo, too. "The separation of mother and child …" he says. "I mean, the killing of Bambi's — it was just one of the most …" (Who can't relate?)  
  
Alas, Disney was an imperfect partner for the more adult stories that interested him by the time he and DreamWorks settled there. "We brought an alternative kind of entertainment that had trouble squeezing in between the branded summer and Christmas four-quadrant crowd-pleasers," says Spielberg. Still, he thinks Disney was "very proud" to distribute films like _The Help_ and _Lincoln_ (both were profitable), and he points out that the 30-film distribution deal he made with them has no expiration date or deadline, and that 11 films remain in the deal (the 19th and most recent film for the deal, _The Light Between Oceans_ , starring Michael Fassbender, Alicia Vikander and Rachel Weisz will be released in September). "We fully plan to fulfill our commitments with Disney, but we aren't going to rush in just to get it over with. Admittedly, it will probably be years before the next one comes off the line, but it'll be worth it."  
  
Associates said Spielberg was baffled and hurt when _Lincoln_ lost the best picture Oscar to Ben Affleck's _Argo_ , but he brushes that off. The one that got to him was _Schindler's List_. It gave him two Oscars in 1994, but he found he lacked a desire to go back to work. "I just didn't," he says. "I could not."  
  
Asked whether he was depressed, he says yes — and then corrects himself. "I've never been depressed," he says. "I was sad and isolated, and as well-received and successful as that movie was, I think it was the trauma of telling the story and forming the Shoah Foundation." For a time, he was more engaged in sending videographers to interview Holocaust survivors than pondering movie projects. "I started to wonder, was _Schindler's List_ going to be the last film I would direct?" he recalls.  
  
But the urge to get back to work "seized me one day like a thunderbolt," he says. "I just needed time." He went for popcorn fare: In 1997, he returned with a sequel to _Jurassic Park_.  
  
By then, DreamWorks had been launched with fanfare, and at first, the company was on a roll: DreamWorks' name was on best picture nominees and winners: _Saving Private Ryan_ , _American Beauty_ , _Gladiator_ and _A Beautiful Mind_ (the latter two co-produced with Universal). Its animation arm launched the _Shrek_ franchise, as well as impressive and mature films like _The Prince of Egypt_.  
  
But there were costly losers, and DreamWorks soon faced money trouble. In 2004, it met pressure to pay off Paul Allen by spinning off its animation division as a public company run by Katzenberg. The next year, live-action DreamWorks sold itself to Paramount in a $1.6 billion deal. But by 2008, high-level power struggles (largely due to Geffen's machinations and his exposure for aiding and abetting the sexual crimes of Harvey Weinstein, Bryan Singer and Kevin Spacey) had soured the relationship to the breaking point. (When asked about his late former partner and friend, Spielberg states: "I really was blindsided by David and his double-dealing to keep the state of the company a secret from me, then I was especially gobsmacked by his criminality. I trusted him completely, and I will make no bones that he completely screwed me over.") Spielberg and then co-chairman, Stacey Snider, launched what he calls "DreamWorks 2.0" as the recession hit. DreamWorks fell well short of its financing goal and released such misses as _Cowboys & Aliens_ and _I Am Number Four_.  
  
"We had these movies that simply did not perform," says Spielberg. "What really hurt our company was _Cowboys & Aliens_ [which cost more than $150 million to make]. Even though we shared it with Universal as a financier, just half of what we lost crippled us. And you know you're underfinanced if one movie can cripple you." He continues: "Stacey and I should have deferred forming the company for a few more years because we went into it half-baked." But had they waited, DreamWorks would have lost the opportunity to lock up rights to 17 projects that it had developed while at Paramount. (Snider left in 2014 to become co-chair of the Fox film studio.)  
  
Having made its distribution deal with Disney, DreamWorks soon became an awkward fit as the guard and goals changed to focus on Marvel and other tentpole live-action movies. Often short of money, DreamWorks teetered until the operation was rebooted in late 2015 under the name of Spielberg's original production company. Amblin Partners has more than $800 million in equity and debt, including $50 million from Spielberg himself. The company will make family movies under the Amblin Entertainment label (though will still get the occasional R-rated film), adult fare under the DreamWorks banner and socially conscious films under the Participant Media name.  
  
Underlying the DreamWorks saga is what could be called a Rashomon question: Did Spielberg do everything for the company — as he thinks he did — or not enough? From the start, Spielberg exercised his prerogative, spelled out in the original DreamWorks deal, to make whatever movie he wanted. He brought DreamWorks in on several major movies developed at other studios, such as _Minority Report_ at Fox. But some former colleagues think the Spielberg-directed movies that belonged entirely to his company were his more adult, less commercial efforts. "He tried to make it OK. It was not OK," says a company veteran. Citing a 2004 Spielberg-directed dramedy, this person continues, " _The Terminal_ is not _Jurassic Park_. He created no franchises for DreamWorks."  
  
This tension hardly is new. After Spielberg's mentor, Sid Sheinberg, launched his career and gave him the home he still occupies on the Universal lot, Spielberg began making movies at Warners. Sheinberg implored him to cut his home studio in on the action; thus, the Spielberg-produced 1996 hit _Twister_ was shared between Warners and Universal.  
  
At DreamWorks 2.0, Spielberg made two films entirely away from his company: _Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull_ for Paramount (2008) and _The Adventures of Tintin_ for Sony and Paramount (2011). He did _War Horse_ and _Lincoln_ for DreamWorks, with Springbok as a co-producer. _BFG_ is a co-production with Disney and Springbok. Also outside DreamWorks, Spielberg produced _Super 8_ and served as executive producer of films including the Coen brothers' _True Grit_ and two _Transformers_ movies. All had been developed by DreamWorks but were left behind in the split from Paramount.  
  
Also apart from DreamWorks, Spielberg oversaw his Amblin Television unit, which created the Peabody-winning _The Americans_ on FX, the CBS series _Under the Dome_ and the upcoming _American Gothic_. In 2014, Amblin TV co-president Darryl Frank told _THR_ that Spielberg "looks at every outline, every script, watches every cut, signs off on every production designer, cinematographer and visual effects artist." However gifted he is at multitasking, all these projects might have chafed those at then-struggling DreamWorks. (Going forward, Amblin TV's projects will be part of Amblin Partners.)  
  
At DreamWorks, says a longtime associate, "Steven had two jobs: He was an executive and a director. He was true to both, as best as he could be." Another insider argues that Spielberg earned the right to do things his way. "He's not an executive — he's a creative maestro," says this person. "He comes in at key moments. He was always available, always willing to help. He always came with ideas." If Spielberg never launched a franchise at DreamWorks, adds this insider, some blame might lie with executives who didn't find the right material to tempt him.  
  
To Spielberg, any question about his focus during the DreamWorks era appears baffling. "I haven't worked away from DreamWorks," he says. "Since we formed the company in '94, the only thing I've done away from DreamWorks is _Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull_." (In the moment, _Tintin_ doesn't come to mind, and clearly he sees his other outside projects as entirely separate matters.)  
  
Comcast chairman and CEO Brian Roberts (Comcast owns 35 percent of NBCUniversal, the largest owner of the various holders), who blessed Universal's distribution agreement with Amblin Partners, obviously is aware that Spielberg will make films for other studios, including the eventual fulfillment of the Disney pact. But he knows his company can reap huge cross-platform benefits, particularly if Spielberg revives more of his long-dormant Amblin Entertainment properties at Universal. (The studio cannot make a move on earlier films such as _Jaws_ , _Back to the Future_ or _The_ _Goonies_ without the filmmaker's consent.)  
  
Universal chairman Donna Langley says that with her studio facing pressure to make a steady stream of tentpole and franchise films, "the types of movies that Amblin Partners is interested in making are complementary to our slate. They're not coming in with things that we already have 12 just like it."  
  
Roberts says the joy of working with Spielberg is about more than movies: "It's what he stands for in life. It doesn't mean he doesn't have other relationships. It's such an interesting life he lives. How can you not want to be in business with him?"  
  
For Spielberg, the move is freighted with emotion, too. When he went to his office after the deals to launch Amblin Partners and the distribution pact with the studio were done, he whipped out his iPhone to memorialize the moment: "20 years from now, I can remember how good it felt to drive back onto the Universal lot," he says. "That's my terminal nostalgia!"  
  
In late April came news that Comcast would fully acquire DreamWorks Animation, making Universal a minority holder of it, and netting Spielberg nearly $200 million. The acquisition assembled two major pieces of the original company — but Katzenberg will not remain once that deal closes. Some saw this as the final death of the DreamWorks dream, but Spielberg says he does not. And who would tell him otherwise? He lives largely inside that force field, where few have the will to challenge his narrative. He's a storyteller, and his story is that the life of DreamWorks is exactly how it should have been.  
  
"It's been thrilling," he says. "To start the first studio in 60 years, you know? It's been thrilling. I think what Jeffrey did for his shareholders in selling [DWA] to Comcast is a triumph for Jeffrey, and it's a monster win for the shareholders. A dream that we had in 1994 really came true in 2016."

* * *

"Michael Easton to Play _Black Butler_ in Hollywood Adaptation", _Soap Opera Network_ , June 25, 2016 **  
  
**Confirmation has emerged that Springbok Productions and Icon Productions' adaptation of the manga and anime series _Black Butler_ for Annapurna Pictures has already landed its titular character, from an unexpected source. Soap actor regular Michael Easton! Best known for having broken out into the world of daytime television as the vampire Caleb Morley on the _General Hospital_ spinoff series _Port Charles_ on ABC, Easton soon became an established actor and a fan favorite. _Port Charles_ attracted real heat for the first time with its supernatural story arcs, especially thanks to Easton, whether it was directly in the form of his charismatic bloodsucker, or his alter ego as rock star Stephen Clay. Springbok Productions, which helped provided financing to keep the ABC Daytime slate alive, even released the music of "The Stephen Clay Experience", in reality the show's music director RC Cates with lead vocals by Joey Lugassy, frontman of the band DAYSIX, on their Exploitation Records label, as well as granting a record deal to Lugassy's own band.  
  
Even before _PC_ finished its decade-long run in 2007, Easton was so beloved that he landed a second ABC Daytime role, as Detective John McBain on _One Life to Live_ , and his character also became an important part of _General Hospital_ , and he still appears in both to this day. Icon Productions CEO Vicki Christianson says, "Michael exudes the charisma we need for the character of Sebastian Michaelis, and he's definitely shown there's far more to him than meets the eye."  
  
 _Black Butler_ , which will be released as two films in 2018 and 2019, has already landed its casting. The film features Timothee Chalamet as Ciel Phantomhive, Suki Waterhouse as Elizabeth "Lizzie" Midford, Amy Okuda as Mey-Rin, Benedict Wong as Tanaka, Keira Knightley as Madam Red, Jim Broadbent as Undertaker, Margot Robbie and Alexander Skarsgaard as Rachel and Vincent Phantomhive, Hayley Atwell and Ralph Fiennes as Frances and Alexis Midford, Genevieve O'Reilly as Lizzie's maid Paula, Vanessa Redgrave as Queen Victoria, Tom Cruise as Grell, and Steve Buscemi as American shipping magnate Bill Pollard, a character created for the movie.

* * *

"Springbok Opens New Atlanta Studio Lot," by David Lieberman, _Variety_ , July 18, 2016

Springbok Productions formally opened a new, secondary studio lot in Atlanta, to a massive housewarming party. The new 100-acre facility in southwest Atlanta will supplement the main, 1087-acre studio lot and creative headquarters for Springbok in Playa Vista, California, especially to help provide jobs for citizens and for productions to take advantage of Georgia's tax incentives. The facility has ten functional soundstages for film and television productions, a backlot, and a small office building as a supplementary home for Denver and Delilah Animation and the video game division.

"This is a great day for Springbok and the city of Atlanta," CEO Jennifer Todd said at the dedication. "We will only further our close relationship by helping create amazing new productions together for film, television and streaming, and will give many many citizens a chance to work for us and help the city continue its amazing expansion."

Springbok had been looking to build an Atlanta studio for years, and had originally negotiated to purchase 300 acres on the site of the former Fort McPherson, which would make it the largest studio in the Southeast; however they were outbid by Tyler Perry, the writer/director/actor best known for the Madea franchise. Springbok's choice for the replacement studio then was a vacant site in the southwest corner of the city. Atlanta has also become known for film and TV production shoots, and the Pinewood Group, the UK group best known for the studio where many of the James Bond films have been shot, made an expansion to North America with a 280-acre facility in Fayette County, which opened two years ago.

* * *

“Mel Gibson: ‘You get barking mad in your 50s,’” by Garry Maddox, _The Sydney Morning Herald_ , August 9, 2016  
  
 _The rants and the outbursts have exacted a price, but the Hollywood bad boy says he’s ready to get on with his life._  
  
Once, it was just another cow paddock at Bringelly on Sydney's south-western outskirts. But on a sweltering spring day, it's an ashen battlefield, littered with bomb craters, charred trees, debris and swirling smoke. On the set of the war drama _Hacksaw Ridge_ , dozens of crew, actors and extras – many swiping at flies – are preparing to shoot a scene that takes place during the Battle of Okinawa as the Allies land on that Japanese island towards the end of World War II.  
  
Amid the carnage that cost more than 80,000 lives was a story of quiet heroism. The film's subject, conscientious objector Desmond Doss, was an American army medic who refused to carry a gun, saved 75 wounded soldiers under Japanese fire, and won the Medal of Honor – the American Victoria Cross.  
  
Through the smoke being pumped from a car driving around and around a newly created hill, Sam Worthington sweeps past dressed as an American soldier. Nearby, another instantly familiar figure emerges from a tent: bearded, intense, a little heavier than we're used to. He's wearing an untucked dark shirt and a floppy hat. Mel Gibson is back in town. More than three decades after he left to become one of Hollywood's biggest stars, the two-time Oscar-winning actor-director is in Sydney shooting a movie. It's his first as a director since the Mayan epic _Apocalypto_ a decade ago. It's first under a splashy three-picture deal with Springbok Productions co-producing, alongside his own company, Icon Productions. And it follows years of controversy that have seen him shunned by Hollywood.  
  
Some filmmakers direct quietly near the camera or a bank of monitors. Mel Gibson is not one of them. Out on the battlefield, he talks enthusiastically to two actors, grabbing a rifle to show how he'd like it to be held, then stumbling down the hill at the pace he wants for the shot. Then he's down, rolling in the dirt. Although it looks from a distance like he's showing an actor how to fall, he later admits he just slipped. "You never trip as much as when you're directing because your attention is always somewhere else," he says. "So I'm constantly tripping and falling."  
  
Associate producer Zak Mechanic says Gibson is unusually animated for a director: "You see him start to move with the actor. He's kind of acting it out himself. Then he gets excited and he runs to the set and talks to the actors. He's out there constantly."  
  
While it's hard to believe of the former "sexiest man alive", the so-called "dish from Down Under" as he was cringingly dubbed in the 1980s, Gibson turned 60 this year. Two of his adult sons have joined him on the movie: Milo, 25, is playing a soldier and Christian, 34, is a camera operator. Andrew Garfield, the boyish English actor from _The Social Network_ and _The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus_ , will be on set later. He plays Doss, and the scene will have him lowered down a ridge on a stretcher via a flying fox. The movie – which is mostly being shot at Bringelly, Sydney's Fox Studios Australia and Doss's home town in Virginia – also stars Hugo Weaving, Rachel Griffiths, Teresa Palmer, Vince Vaughn and Richard Roxburgh.  
  
The impressive cast reflects Gibson's standing as a director of powerful, emotional, graphically told stories. His last three movies, the Scottish epic _Braveheart_ (1995), religious drama _The Passion of the Christ_ (2004) and _Apocalypto_ (2006), have collectively grossed $940 million US and won five Oscars from 16 nominations.  
  
But the fact Gibson is shooting a medium-budget Australian-American movie that was pitched to him by producer and Springbok Productions executive Bill Mechanic, rather than one of many projects he has developed himself, shows that rebuilding a tattered career takes time. At the height of his Hollywood success, Gibson was seen as a devoted husband and father, a churchgoer with old-fashioned – you could say very conservative – social and political views. But a series of drunken outbursts have seen him portrayed as a racist, sexist, homophobic anti-Semite.  
  
When lunch is called, Gibson heads to a sparsely furnished trailer to talk about his comeback. Close up, he still scrubs up pretty decently: tanned face, blue eyes, grey-flecked hair and a whitish beard that would look the part in either a bikie gang or Amish congregation.  
  
He loves the idea of a war hero who was prepared to sacrifice his life for others. "This guy was for real," he says. "He would not touch a weapon no matter what. But he went into the thick of places where nobody else would go, which is kind of unbelievable. I think he's a hero for our times."  
  
Gibson has a lot riding on _Hacksaw Ridge_. He wants the chance to be a serious filmmaker again. He needs to show those in Hollywood who have quietly boycotted him that he is no longer a volatile commodity. That he is truly worthy of a three-picture deal with Springbok Productions this time around (he was part of a similar deal a decade ago, but only _Apocalypto_ was released as part of it). That he is back in town in another sense, too. But will it work?  
  
Everyone has an opinion about Mel Gibson. Over the decades, millions of words have been written about him. His looks and charisma. The movies that have collectively grossed $US3.6 billion. His Catholicism. His practical jokes. His struggles with alcohol. His wealth, estimated at $850 million US before his divorce in 2011. His latter-day troubles.  
  
I met him briefly when he was a young actor with an edgy energy, and startling good looks, in the early 1980s. It was a chance to see how fame worked even early on in his career. Walking into a party with him, the gravity in the room suddenly shifted. Everyone was quickly aware, even if they were too cool to show it, that Mel Gibson had arrived.  
  
I wasn't sure what to expect now, other than a man riven with contradictions. Maybe he would be angry at those who had shunned him for more than a decade. Certainly guarded about his private life, as he always has been.  
  
Sketching a truthful portrait of him at 60 isn't easy – like many stars, he has publicists whose mantra is "no personal questions" – but he seems open and genuine as I interview him three times over a period of eight months. While definitely wary about reigniting past controversies, he is, as unlikely as it sounds, surprisingly humble, which could be what happens when your darkest moments are exposed to the world. (Gibson admits to years of Alcoholics Anonymous involvement, so it could be the 12-step program's requirement for a "searching and fearless moral inventory" that's behind this humility.)  
  
"I've had to do that stuff, otherwise you don't survive," he says, referring to his struggle to overcome a drinking problem. They call it the spiritual path for the psychopath. They say there's only three options: you go insane, you die or you quit. That's the harsh reality. I'm an old hand at that."  
  
During the interviews he is a good storyteller and, at times, funny. On the decrepitude that comes with aging, for instance: "Geez, the aching joints," he says. "Oh my god. I get up at five or six in the morning and – owww – I'm crawling across the floor like a duck-shot dog trying to get to the shower … I feel I'm pretty physical, so that's good, but I have aches, pains, bad back, the whole deal. But you've just got to ignore it, right? We're all going one way." But every now and then there are flashes of fury or hurt that belie his claim that he has developed "a hide like a rhinoceros" and "the arrows bounce off now".  
  
Initially reserved while talking in that trailer on the _Hacksaw Ridge_ set, Gibson warms up during an "In Conversation" session I host at the Sydney Film Festival in June, centering on his latest acting role in French director Jean-François Richet's enjoyably grungy thriller _Blood Father._ While his publicists do their best to avoid those personal questions at a subsequent sit-down for _Good Weekend_ – it wound up early and was unexpectedly filmed by two cameras in front of 10 crew and publicists – he answered everything I asked with what seemed to me like honesty.  
  
After his American family moved to Australia from upstate New York when he was 12, Mel Gibson grew up on Sydney's North Shore. He attended St Leo's Catholic College in Wahroonga, then the National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA), alongside such actors as Judy Davis, Steve Bisley and Debra Lawrance.  
  
His first big break came when, after driving a friend to audition for director George Miller, he was invited back to try out himself. "I walked in the room and George was in there," he says. "He said, 'Tell me a joke', so I told him a joke. He said, 'Can you drive?' I said, 'Yeah'. Basically that was it."  
  
Gibson says he had no idea this low-budget action film, 1979's _Mad Max_ , would be successful, let alone launch both his and Miller's careers. "Film? I didn't know film," he says. "But you just jump in the driver's seat. You do your level best to try and understand the medium. And everybody was fledgling at that point … George was a doctor … everybody was clutching in the dark but they had a basic idea that had a good foundation based in legend, myth and storytelling."  
  
Gibson enjoyed _Mad Max: Fury Road,_ last year's fourth installment, calling it "visually spectacular and marvelously edited". He says he has no regrets about being replaced as Max by Tom Hardy: "I thought about the physical agony, being swung around on some fishing pole."  
  
After acting solidly on stage and in more films, including the landmark _Mad Max 2_ , Gibson's agent, the late Bill Shanahan, urged him to head to Los Angeles. "I said, 'I don't want to go over there,' " he says. " 'They're just going to tell us to fuck off.' But he kept nagging at me, so I went over and we did the rounds. Most people looked at us curiously, like, 'Who are you?' They more or less told us to move on." While there had been the odd Australian star in Hollywood before – notably Errol Flynn, Rod Taylor and Peter Finch – it was rare then for Australian actors (as the American-born Gibson effectively was at this point) to try their luck in L.A.  
  
But when Paramount bought and then screened Peter Weir's 1981 classic _Gallipoli_ – in which Gibson starred – he says "all the people I'd seen who were dismissive, all of a sudden wanted to call". As a fresh, edgy talent in Hollywood, he followed up another masterful Weir film, _The Year of Living Dangerously_ (1982), with _The River_ (1984), _The Bounty_ (1984), _Mrs Soffel_ (1984) and, back in Australia, _Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome_ (1985). After a spell on his cattle property in Victoria, he returned to L.A. to shoot the buddy comedy _Lethal Weapon_ (1987). It was a hit, and Gibson discovered, at 31, what it was like to be very, very famous.  
  
"It's fun for a while and then the novelty wears off rather quickly," he says. "You've lost a very precious thing and that's your anonymity. That's part of it; now I get that. But you don't sign the deal that says you have no more rights. You don't sign a piece of paper that says people can say anything they want about you – in public – and there's nothing legally you can do about it. You get all kinds of stuff. It's a bit of a rude awakening." Other Australian stars, like Hugh Jackman, Geoffrey Rush and Cate Blanchett, seem to share that view while being better able to appreciate the upside and handle the downside of fame.  
  
With accountant Bruce Davey, Gibson formed Icon Productions to star in _Hamlet_ in 1990. Within five years, he was directing films as well. First _The Man Without a Face_ (1993). Then _Braveheart_ (1995), which he also produced with Davey. With stirring emotion and violent battle scenes, the epic that had Gibson playing Scottish hero William Wallace was a triumph, taking $210 million US at the global box office and winning five Oscars, including two for Gibson: Best Picture and Best Director.  
  
"Nobody wanted to do it," he says. "They thought, 'Oh, costume drama, they're out', so it was rejected. But I was riding pretty high at the time so I had some grace, I guess, from two studios. They were both a little funny about it but they thought, 'We'll keep this guy in because we maybe want to work with him down the line', so they gave me some slack. We went to work and it was exhausting; an 18-hour day for five months, seven days a week. By the time I was finished, I was like, 'Put me in a straitjacket.' I couldn't even converse. I thought, 'I'll never do that again.' I was a youngster at that point" – he was 39 – "but I got old on that film."  
  
As well as three _Lethal Weapon_ sequels, Gibson continued starring in generally successful commercial films. Among them were _Tequila Sunrise_ (1998), _Air America_ (1990), _Forever Young_ (1992), _Maverick_ (1994), voice roles in _Pocahontas_ (1995) and _Chicken Run_ (2000), _Ransom_ (1996), _Conspiracy Theory_ (1997), _The Patriot_ (2000), _What Women Want_ (2000) and _Signs_ (2002). Icon was also backing more adventurous projects such as Wim Wenders' _The Million Dollar Hotel_ and, back in Australia, two movies without Gibson: _Dad and Dave: On Our Selection_ and _The Magic Pudding_. It was also branching out into UK films like _Kevin and Perry Go Large_ and also beginning to circle with interest in television projects.  
  
But the film Gibson decided to direct and co-write after _Braveheart_ seemed like sheer madness: a biblical drama with graphic violence and dialogue largely in Aramaic. Yet _The Passion of the Christ_ , released in 2004, was nothing short of a phenomenon. It was attacked by Jewish leaders as anti-Semitic, but at a cost of $30 million US, funded entirely by Icon, it grossed a remarkable $611 million US, the highest-grossing R-rated film for a decade. "It turned into a real slugfest, while I was making it and afterwards," he says. "I was surprised at the amount of controversy that it stirred up. Seriously surprised. I mean, Jesus, it used to be in every hotel room in the world, the Gideon Bible, and the story didn't differ from what's in there."  
  
However high he was riding after _The Passion of the Christ_ – _Forbes_ estimated he made $185 million US in the 2005 financial year, and Icon’s original three-picture deal with Springbok also followed – Gibson soon found Hollywood turning against him. Those offended by the movie felt justified when he launched into an anti-Semitic tirade while being arrested for drink driving in L.A. in 2006. Even after apologizing for his "vitriolic and harmful words", agent Ari Emanuel urged Hollywood to shun Gibson, and many quietly did. I interviewed a well-known Hollywood director around this time who, once the tape recorder was switched off, launched into a furious tirade about Gibson's anti-Semitism. Springbok (who was also attacked by Gibson during his outburst) cancelled their deal, but went through with releasing _Apocalypto_ with Disney that Christmas; and while it succeeded financially, the impact wasn’t as big as it should’ve been, and would’ve been without Gibson’s tirade. A planned miniseries about Dutch Jews in the Holocaust, also to have been made with Springbok and Disney, was axed.  
  
Gibson has since said his Australian wife of 26 years, Robyn, asked him to move out of the family home the day after the arrest (though he and the family and inner circle did not say anything about this, such as during his October 2006 interview by Diane Sawyer on _Good Morning America_ ), leading to a period of depression and loneliness as his career spiraled downwards. In 2010 came more vitriolic words in leaked audio tapes of an outburst against his then girlfriend, Russian pianist Oksana Grigorieva, the mother of his youngest child, Lucia. He was dropped by his Hollywood agent William Morris Endeavor. Later, he pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor spousal battery charge without admitting guilt.  
  
A once-private life had become very public. He could have fought back publicly with his side of the story or given an _Oprah_ -style interview, seeking sympathy and forgiveness. But he's not one for tearful public confessions.  
  
"I've never treated anyone badly or in a discriminatory way based on their gender, race, religion or sexuality – period," Gibson told website Deadline Hollywood in a rare interview in 2011. "I don't blame people for thinking that though, from the garbage they heard on those leaked tapes, which have been edited. By which I mean, edited as in several conversations were edited to be part of the same one, and that comments that she made to prompt what I said are conspicuously missing; not that I didn’t say those things, which I did. You have to put it in the proper context of being in an irrationally, heated discussion at the height of a breakdown, trying to get out of a really unhealthy relationship."  
  
There was more, too. In a call for Gibson to be accepted back into Hollywood in 2014, the journalist-turned-friend who penned that earlier interview, Allison Hope Weiner, wrote that "during his breakup with Grigorieva, he'd gone through a terrible emotional breakdown and struggled to get healthy, gain joint custody of his infant daughter and deal with the fallout from the publication of those awful tapes". She wrote he was "an alcoholic whose 2006 outburst was captured after he fell off the wagon"; that as well as meeting Jewish leaders who had criticized _The Passion of the Christ_ , Gibson had "quietly donated millions to charitable Jewish causes"; that he had "helped Margot Kidder find her footing again" and "tried to save Whitney Houston from the drug abuse that ultimately killed her"; that during the assault case one investigator said "they had enormous problems with the credibility" of Grigorieva and there was evidence of extortion.  
  
Other friends have rallied to his cause. Accepting a lifetime achievement award five years ago, Robert Downey, Jr. said how grateful he was to his _Air America_ co-star for helping him get sober and casting him when no one else would, calling on Hollywood to forgive him.  
  
Jodie Foster has also pledged her support. A friend since they appeared in _Maverick_ , she cast him as a depressed alcoholic who can only communicate through a hand puppet in comic drama _The Beaver_ , which flopped in 2011, largely as it came right after the Grigorieva scandal. "He's certainly not sexist, he's certainly not racist," Foster told _The New York Times_ in April. "I know the guy I know, somebody who's really emotional, who I can have long, long conversations with, who's trustworthy, who shows up for me."  
  
Bill Mechanic, a former chief executive of 20th Century Fox Filmed Entertainment, a key executive of Springbok and _Hacksaw Ridge_ producer along with Springbok’s founders (Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain, actress Charlize Theron, and Springbok CEO Jennifer Todd), says Gibson is different from how he is often portrayed. "If you spend time with him, he is a good guy," Mechanic says. "Like many people, he's a person with flaws. As opposed to most people, he knows his own flaws and I don't think he likes them and is always trying to remedy them."  
  
Mainstream acting jobs dried up – just _The Beaver, Get The Gringo_ (2012), _Machete Kills_ (2013), _The Expendables 3_ (2014) and now _Blood Father_ in six years – but Gibson says he has been busy. "I write a lot – or co-write – stories and plots," he says. "And there's the day-to-day childrearing. I have a little one [Lucia is now 6]. And several big ones … and grandkids and all that sort of stuff. But mostly I focus on stories and how to tell them in a way that's hopefully original."  
  
Gibson enjoys the time he spends with his adult children (daughter Hannah and sons Edward, Christian, William, Louis, Milo and Thomas) and says the good news is they still like him, not just love him. "As a parent, everybody screws up," he says. "There's no such thing as a perfect parent and it's so easy to mess up. But hopefully I've screwed up less than most."  
  
While getting on with life – his new partner is 25-year-old budding screenwriter Rosalind Ross – he is still living down his indiscretions. When two state ministers announced the NSW Government had landed the _Hacksaw Ridge_ shoot last year, Gibson made a short, nervous speech of thanks. As he left the podium, a TV reporter called after him, "Why should the state government give money to racists?" Gibson kept walking.  
  
His new film, _Blood Father_ , has echoes of his own life. It's about a grizzled survivor of hard times, an ex-con living in a trailer park and going to AA meetings, who gets a shot at redemption when his estranged teenage daughter needs protection from drug dealers.  
  
Gibson might prefer protection from the paparazzi. It's clear their attentions upset him. "If you're out in the street, I guess you've got it coming," he says. "But when you're in your domicile and the long lens comes into your yard or tries to get through your window, I don't know if that's legal. I don't think it is, but it happens all the time. It's kind of a scary thing because people can accuse you of assault or something like that when you haven't done it."  
  
He was cleared of shoving a newspaper photographer outside a Sydney cinema last year. "Luckily there was a witness and CCTV cameras that said I didn't do it," he says. "The cops didn't charge me but you never get an apology from these people who write damaging articles and it's annoying." How does he come to terms with incidents like that? "You don't," he says. "You just outlive it. There are some graves I will piss on." Pause. "They don't even have to be dead."  
  
Gibson is just as candid about turning 60. "You get a little pre-show around about 58, 59 for 60," he says. "The realization hit that the third act had begun. I don't know where it's going to take me. My father [Hutton, who now lives in the US] is 98, so he's had a long third act. I don't know if I want a long third act but I'd like a full one. I enjoy working. I really love it. I hope my mind stays attuned."  
  
For an actor who once did a 60-meter jump off a building for a stunt during a key sequence in _Lethal Weapon_ – "I don't like heights but I was shamed into it" – aging has brought a certain creakiness. He has found adult stem cell treatment in South America – often considered experimental – beneficial for both himself and his father. "I had my shoulder done," he says. "It's a miracle." But, as his face attests, he doesn't go in for cosmetic work. "I don't want the dimple on my chin to be my navel," he says. "You see some people getting touched up. It starts to get weird. Just let it go."  
  
With age, Gibson recognizes the need to move on from your worries. "You do become more relaxed about things. Women have menopause. Men go through the same thing. It's an andropause kind of thing. You get barking mad in your 50s and then you settle down. I don't want to go back to the early 50s." Finding peace – barking mad or not – is a subject Gibson returns to later. "The answer's not in a bottle," he says reflectively. "It's not in a prescription med or any of that sort of stuff. Some people need to use that stuff. I don't. But it's a higher thing. You have to get some kind of philosophical, spiritual level to deal with the knocks."  
  
Despite what seemed like a highly successful career and family life up to that point, turning 50 just a few months before his drink-driving arrest forced Gibson to reflect on his life. "You look back at the whole thing and think, 'What did I do?' " he says. "There's a sense it's more than half over, the whole drama. Your tiny little drama on the planet. You're like a speck. You're like an atom in the scheme of things, really. But we tend to make it all a little too important. That's part of it. It's the ego, isn't it?"  
  
A pressing question for Gibson now is whether he feels his troubles are behind him. Whether the storm is over. "Hey, we've all got troubles, all the time, every day, in some form or another," he says. "That's life. It's how you deal with them. You can't let them get to you too much. I have a sense of ease, I think, which is good. Because you've got to be good to yourself, right? If you're not good to yourself, it's not going to radiate onto anyone else."  
  
With _Hacksaw Ridge_ having its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival in September and a new acting gig as the founding editor of the Oxford English Dictionary in _The Professor and the Madman_ , he has other movies he wants to direct now, including a sequel to _The Passion of the Christ_ (entitled, quite obviously, _The Resurrection of the Christ_ ), another WWII epic about the naval conflict during the Pacific Theater, and a Jacobean tragedy set in 15th-century Italy. But will Hollywood finally forgive Mel Gibson for his sins? Could the quiet blacklisting by studios, agencies and many former colleagues be finished?  
  
"I don't think about it too much," he says. "What is, is. It's getting on with your life, doing the things you want to do and telling stories and being allowed to do what you're good at. That's important to me."  
  
 _Blood Father_ opens on September 1. _Hacksaw Ridge_ opens on November 3.

* * *

"Right-Wing Mob's Attempted Insurrection Fails," _USA Today_ , November 12, 2016

A crowd of angry Republican voters, dismayed at the sweeping victory of Democratic candidate Senator Hillary Clinton two nights earlier (70 percent of the popular vote and 390 electoral votes), took to the streets to launch an attempt at an armed insurrection.

The descended on National Guard armories in several states, most notably the one in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, famously home of an 1859 attempted slave rebellion led by abolitionist John Brown, in order to seize armaments and displace the federal government. However, each assault was easily repelled by local police and the Guardsmen posted inside, leading to nearly 100 mob members killed in total.

The local police, the FBI and ATF raided the homes of various mob leaders to search for evidence, and the websites fomenting armed unrest have been shut down pursuant to a Bureau investigation of armed right-wind paramilitary groups and hate groups.

Various political leaders of both parties officially denounced the assaults, with President Obama in particular calling on the Republicans to officially amputate the extremist wing of their party once and for all.

* * *

"Queen Movie Amping Up With Paul Greengrass & Rami Malek As Freddie Mercury," by Mike Fleming, Jr., _Deadline Hollywood_ , November 30, 2016  
  
EXCLUSIVE: Paul Greengrass is officially confirmed as directing _Bohemian Rhapsody_ , the long-in-the-works movie about the seminal British rock band Queen, with _Mr. Robot_ ‘s Rami Malek playing frontman Freddie Mercury. The film is coming back together and is on the fast track at 20th Century Fox and New Regency with original producer Graham King and his GK Films, and Springbok Productions joining in.  
  
Fox and New Regency have stepped up for the joint project in the latest maneuver for a movie that has been in development with King for eight years. The most recent script, which focuses on the band and its iconic lead singer, is from renowned scribe Jay Cocks, best known for his works with Martin Scorsese such as _The Age of Innocence_ , _Gangs of New York_ and the upcoming _Silence_. King, Queen manager Jim Beach, Kurt Cobain, Charlize Theron and Jennifer Todd are producers, and executive producers are Denis O'Sullivan, Arnon Milchan, Jane Rosenthal, original planned director Dexter Fletcher, Paula Wagner, Michael De Luca and Irving Azoff. Original Queen bandmembers Brian May and Roger Taylor will serve as music producers. It’s being eyed to shoot early next year.  
  
On the film side, Greengrass is best known for his taking over the reins from Doug Liman in the _Bourne_ franchise, and for his harrowing dramas _United 93_ and _Captain Phillips_. He has since done several films for Springbok, including _Memphis_ , _Karen Carpenter: Goodbye to Love_ , _Trail of Tears_ and the upcoming _Meat Loaf: To Hell and Back_ with Chris Farley.  
  
Malek won the Lead Drama Actor Emmy this summer as the star of USA Network’s hit hacker series _Mr. Robot_. His film credits include this year’s _Buster’s Mal Heart,_ which was at Toronto, and he was in _Short Term 12_ with Brie Larson. He’s now shooting the _Papillon_ remake with Charlie Hunnam. Malik is with WME and Brillstein Entertainment.  
  
Previous incarnations of the project originally had been rooted at Sony. Sacha Baron Cohen had been aboard as Mercury and Peter Morgan writing, before creative differences scotched that plan. Later, Ben Whishaw was to star with Dexter Fletcher directing, but more creative issues nixed that team-up. A second script by _The Theory of Everything_ scribe Anthony McCarten had also been turned in during this time, but was allegedly pulped by orders from Springbok, particularly Cobain.  
  
King worked with Springbok in the past for _The Departed,_ and next up for his GK Films is the Robert Zemeckis-helmed _Allied_ at Paramount starring Brad Pitt and Marion Cotillard, which bows November 23.  
  
Fox and New Regency, of course, teamed on back-to-back Oscar Best Picture winners in _Birdman_ and _The Revenant,_ the latter of which was also co-produced by Springbok, earned Leonardo DiCaprio his second Best Actor Oscar and Alejandro G. Iñárritu his second consecutive Best Director Oscar.

* * *

“Annapurna Launches Distribution Arm With Katheryn Bigelow Detroit Riots Movie,” by Dave McNary, _Variety_ , January 17, 2017  
  
Annapurna Pictures is launching its full-service distribution and marketing operation with Kathryn Bigelow’s untitled movie about the 1967 Detroit riots.  
  
Marc Weinstock, who recently joined the company as president, will oversee the new division alongside marketing chief David Kaminow and Erik Lomis, the distribution president. Annapurna, which was founded by Megan Ellison in 2010 with the help of startup funds by Springbok Productions, has specialized in adult dramas such as Bigelow’s _Zero Dark Thirty_ , _Joy_ , _20th Century Women_ , _Foxcatcher_ , _American Hustle_ and _Her_. It also notably also released the fast-paced action film _Hardcore Henry_ and the political satire _The Little GOP That Could_ from Springbok last year.  
  
“Kathryn’s untitled Detroit project is exemplary of the type of films we will be distributing,” Weinstock said. “I couldn’t be more confident in the team we are establishing to distribute and market the film in a way that is as creative and masterful as her film is.”  
  
Bigelow is producing the film with Annapurna’s Ellison and Matthew Budman. Mark Boal, who wrote the script, and Colin Wilson are also producers with Greg Shapiro executive producing. The release date will coincide with the 50th anniversary of the riots.  
  
The film stars an ensemble cast of John Boyega, Chris Chalk, Nathan Davis Jr., Kaitlyn Dever, Austin Hébert, Joseph David-Jones, Malcolm David Kelley, John Krasinski, Jacob Latimore, Anthony Mackie, Jason Mitchell, Hannah Murray, Ben O’Toole, Will Poulter, Jack Reynor, Algee Smith, Peyton Alex Smith, Jeremy Strong, Ephraim Sykes, and Leon Thomas III.  
  
“Kathryn took a chance on me six years ago and I’m honored that she has put her faith in me and my team once again,” Ellison said. “I could not be more excited to be launching this new part of our company with such a groundbreaking filmmaker, tremendous collaborator, and dear friend.”  
  
Bigelow said, “Megan has been such a huge supporter of filmmakers as a producer and the fact that she is now offering a full-fledged distribution and marketing home run by such innovative and creative executives is great news to all of us. I am thrilled to be working with them.”

* * *

“How Celebrity Production Companies Went from Joke to Box-Office (and Oscar) Gold”, by Margaret Heidenry, _Vanity Fair_ , February 24, 2017  
  
On March 2, 2014, Martin Scorsese grabbed Hollywood’s brass ring at the 86th Academy Awards: a best-picture Oscar for _The Wolf of Wall Street_. As director he began his acceptance speech, he looked heavenward, eyes shining. Maybe it was the award-show lighting; maybe it was just a “hell yes” reaction to finally winning an Oscar after 46 years in the film business. In that time, he gave a shout-out to Springbok Productions, naturally, but also Appian Way Productions the production company his lead Leonardo DiCaprio co-founded, and then thanked the actor himself—not just for his role in the film (which nabbed him his first Oscar as well), but also his role as producer. “Without [DiCaprio and Springbok], this film just would not have been made,” Scorsese said. That night, Brad Pitt also smiled widely, since his co-production with Springbok, _12 Years a Slave_ , won Best Adapted Screenplay, and screenwriter John Ridley and director Steve McQueen thanked Springbok but also Pitt, and his production company, Plan B Entertainment, in much the same way Scorsese had done earlier. While he may not have won the biggest prize, the fact that he’d gone into the running and won something at all was reason enough to cheer.  
  
Three years later, Plan B has its fourth consecutive best-picture thoroughbred in the Oscar race with _Moonlight_. ( _Selma_ and _The Big Short_ were Oscar competitors two and three.) Las Vegas oddsmakers may favor _La La Land_ over Plan B and its co-presidents, Dede Gardner and Jeremy Kleiner, taking home another golden trophy—but the real long shot was Pitt going from playing “preppie kid at fight” in 1987’s _Less than Zero_ to leading one of Hollywood’s most accomplished production companies. Just as unlikely is Matt Damon’s rise from his bit part as “steamer” in 1988’s _Mystic Pizza_ to a nominated producer of another current best-picture contender _Manchester by the Sea_. Why? Because for much of Hollywood history, moguls preferred screen idols to stay firmly in front of the camera.  
  
If there’s one tell that signals an industry insider—beyond the competitive name-dropping or valeting the latest Tesla—it’s the offhand use of jargon. Players don’t have meetings at all the studios; they “do the rounds.” On film sets, actors are referred to as “talent.” And the charmed few who secure a producing deal with a major studio “hang a shingle” on the lot. Less well known is another juicy bit of industry slang, at once derisive and descriptive. When talent signs a production pact with a studio, he or she lands a “vanity shingle”—perhaps the ultimate, if ultimately derided, star perk.  
  
Vanity—from the Latin vanitas, meaning empty pride—is not often a welcome descriptor, even in a town that elevates facialists to superstar status. For years, studio executives scoffed at actors who wanted to produce, seeing the disruption of a long-established pecking order as ego run amok. A vanity shingle is often like a giant ball of string—used both to distract a star and to tether him or her to a studio in a throwback to the old star system. And this cat-and-mouse game ain’t cheap.  
  
A studio can shell out anywhere from a few hundred thousand and up to $10 million a year to foot each vanity deal. The return? A few hits, a lot of flops, or, more often, not even one reel of exposed film. In the past, some vanity shingles were described as little more than tax havens where actors could bill their private chefs. Chatter around Los Angeles is that executives don’t exactly grease the greenlight process for thespians trying to birth passion projects—i.e., box-office poison. Now, though, that may be changing. A new troupe of stars like Pitt, Damon, Charlize Theron (and her husband, Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain) and Reese Witherspoon have seized the producing mantle. And these days, they’re rivaling studios where it counts most—the coffers.  
  
There’s an Old Hollywood joke that claims everyone on a film crew harbors the same secret thought bubble: “What I really want to do is direct.” But there’s only one director per picture. A more bountiful credit? Producer. The job description can be nebulous, but there’s a reason a film’s true producer—the person responsible for the Herculean task of getting the movie from idea to final cut—is the one hoisting the Oscar for best picture: he or she controls the material.  
  
The eternal creative power struggle between studios and actors began in the black-and-white flicker of the nascent moving-picture industry. A surprise golden egg, hatched from a lowly arcade novelty, quickly became the stifling studio system. For decades, businessmen tightly controlled actors’ salaries, and the bottom line trumped artistic expression. There have, however, been exceptions to that rule: take Clint Eastwood, who slid into the producing chair in 1967, forming the Malpaso Company (now Malpaso Productions) fresh off his bloody spaghetti-Western reign. Malpaso means “bad step,” supposedly a nod to what an agent said producing would be to Eastwood’s career; yet the company boasts one of the most successful so-called vanity deals of all time, responsible for hits such as _Dirty Harry_ , _Unforgiven_ , _Mystic River_ , _Gran Torino_ and _American Sniper_.  
  
Other actors caught Eastwood’s entrepreneurial spirit when modern star power reached its zenith in the 1990s. Sheer excess telegraphed actors’ domination over studios—from $20 million paychecks per film to a motherlode of vanity shingles. Upward of 30 actors enjoyed housekeeping or production deals in that decade, setting up shop in backlots from Burbank’s Warner Bros. to Hollywood’s Paramount. (“Housekeeping” means a studio foots the bill for an actor’s office space, support staff, and maybe a decorating budget. A-listers with a production deal get all of the above, plus what’s called a discretionary fund or development money, i.e., a pot of studio gold that can be used to gobble up anything from pitches to optioning books.)  
  
The studio essentially buys the rights to produce a star’s movie in both set-ups—the very raison d’etre of vanity shingles. The fastest route to a movie premiere, after all, is to attach talent to a script. In a studio’s version of a happy ending, a star’s shingle will develop the perfect vehicle for that actor—potentially turning the studio’s support budget into boffo box office.  
  
Consider the ultimate vanity shingle—rumored to be worth $10 million a year at one point. In 1992, a 30-year-old Tom Cruise and his agent, Paula Wagner, set up Cruise/Wagner Productions at Paramount. His sweet deal allowed the actor’s company to develop projects in exchange for Cruise starring in three films over two years. Paramount grabbing the coattails of—and handing over two floors of office space to—a rising global superstar was the very definition of sound business practice. Cruise’s debut as producer was shrewd as well, since that credit generally gets a piece of the box-office action. The company’s first film? _Mission: Impossible_. Cruise’s take home? An astonishing $70 million. (This continued apace for them until Paramount cut them off in 2006, leading to the duo’s brief run in charge of United Artists, until Wagner left, and later was hired by Springbok.)  
  
In Hollywood’s vanity fever dream, seemingly every ‘90s leading woman or supporting man was soon commissioning a production company logo. The year 1996 saw Chris O’Donnell hang his George Street Pictures shingle at Warner Bros., on the strength of reprising his role as Robin to George Clooney’s Batman. By 1999, the deal ended without anyone ever calling “Action” on a single project for that studio.  
  
Vanity shingle–produced films that made it to theaters included hits like _The Bodyguard_ (courtesy of Kevin Costner’s Tig Productions) and equal but opposite actor-gone-wild stinkers from then-white-hot stars like Demi Moore. Her Moving Pictures churned out _The Scarlet Letter_ (Moore as a hot Puritan) and _G.I. Jane_ (Moore as a hot Navy SEAL) for Disney. Neither made back its budget, with reports of _Scarlet_ falling a cold tens of millions of dollars short.  
  
Vanity shingles reached new extremes in 1995—even by Hollywood standards—when Sony’s Columbia Pictures cut a $10 million, three-year, first-look deal to fund Alicia Silverstone’s production company, First Kiss. The 18-year-old Silverstone’s sleeper hit _Clueless_ caused Hollywood accountants to take notice. But two years later, First Kiss’s nascent production, _Excess Baggage_ , felt the kiss of box-office death: a $20 million budget yielded just $14 million in domestic ticket sales. Factor in the $10 million in operating funds, and Silverstone’s deal put Columbia $16 million in the red.  
  
That math likely prompted Disney studio head Joe Roth to engage in a different kind of housekeeping in 1998, trashing more than half of the studio’s 70 shingles. Within a year, other studios joined in, sending 20 percent of all shingles to the wood chipper. Not all were actor-fronted. But marquee names on the chopping block included Moore, Melanie Griffith, Diane Keaton, Nicolas Cage, Madonna, Denzel Washington, Sylvester Stallone, and Michelle Pfeiffer.  
  
Cruise survived the reckoning, as did other actors known by their last names: Tom Hanks, Will Smith, Jodie Foster, Mel Gibson, Costner, Robert De Niro, and Bruce Willis, plus a handful more. After the millennium came and went, vanity deals briefly flourished on a smaller scale. But the 2008 financial crisis ensured that shingles in general became a go-to line item to delete as long-term austerity set in at studios, and the star system waned in power. In 2000, there were 292 such pacts. Today that number has dwindled to 135.  
  
Into this breach stepped Cobain and Theron, who along with Jennifer Todd, founded Springbok. Todd took pains to describe Springbok as “not a vanity deal,” because of choosing not to be based on a major studio's lot (choosing instead to create their own, purchasing a lot previously being built for DreamWorks until that company cancelled the deal, which opened for Springbok in 2001) or entering any exclusive deals, and using their own sources of money to pay their overheads and script development. Their debut film, 2001’s _Ghost in the Shell_ , was a roaring success, setting the standard for their work to come. Springbok has branched out successfully into not only films, but television, animation, music, musical theatre and video games, an absolute conglomerate on par with the majors. Springbok has also hooked up with co-producers on many of their projects, including with vanity shingles. In a very real sense, Springbok helped make shingles cool again, even successful.  
  
Talkies pushed _Sunset Boulevard’s_ faded Norma Desmond off the screen. But actors these days are threatened both by new technology and by never-ending blasts from the past. While the fundamental tenet of Hollywood used to be that stars opened movies, latex masks now obscure A-listers’ faces in CGI-laden blockbusters. Many actors who prefer not to always wear a cape—including those who have aged out of the time when they could have realistically done so—have no choice but to produce their own material even if all they really want to do is act.  
  
Take Reese Witherspoon, who formed her Type A production company more than a decade ago—in the waning heyday of the vanity shingles boom. (It was originally housed across the hall from her ex-husband Ryan Phillippe’s Lucid Films, which apparently never made a movie.) For 10 years, Type A’s credit appeared on precisely three movies, including _Legally Blonde 2_ ; not as bad as First Kiss’s record, maybe, but hardly a Hollywood force. Then, in 2012, Witherspoon did the rounds in search of her next project. What the 36-year-old discovered was sobering—just one studio was producing a film with an older female lead (“older,” here, meaning over 30).  
  
Witherspoon told _Variety_ she thought to herself, “I’ve got to get busy,” and so she went to the mattresses. She folded her old company into a new, independent one, Pacific Standard, done by partnering with a veteran producer, Bruna Papandrea and her Make Movies banner. Just two years later, Pacific Standard racked up half a billion in box office receipts and picked up three Oscar nominations with _Gone Girl_ and _Wild_. She also teamed with Springbok for Paul Greengrass' film _Trail of Tears_. Pacific Standard became a division of an even bigger company, Hello Sunshine, which is launching its first television project, _Big Little Lies_ , on HBO later this year, with Witherspoon also starring in it alongside Nicole Kidman, who is also a producer with her own shingle, Blossom Films.  
  
Warner Bros. hosts Ben Affleck and Matt Damon’s Pearl Street Films—the company that co-produced films like _Gone Baby Gone_ , _Memphis, Black Mass_ and _Manchester by the Sea_. And Affleck and George Clooney have more in common than histories of squeezing into a pointy-eared Batman costume: the pair also produced 2013’s best-picture winner _Argo_ through Clooney’s shingle, Smokehouse Pictures at Sony. Leonardo DiCaprio—another mega-actor-producer, who fronts Appian Way—recently inked a three-year first look deal with Paramount. His past credits include _The Wolf of Wall Street_ , which generated almost $400 million worldwide. And Pitt’s Plan B looks like anything but a tax haven with its _World War Z_ making $540 million, _The Big Short’s_ $40 million profit and _Moonlight’s_ $20,362,533 in ticket sales off a minuscule $5 million budget. And Ice Cube cemented his Cube Vision after cycling through various vanity deals. He helped shepherd _Straight Outta Compton_ onto the screen, a film that earned more than $130 million domestically and gave the former rapper his nineteenth producer credit.  
  
Not every star has the Midas touch. Even Plan B has had its duds, like 2015’s _True Story_ ; see also Pearl Street’s recent bomb _Live By Night_ , starring and directed by Affleck. Tina Fey recently hung her vanity shingle—Little Stranger Inc.—at Universal, but her _Whiskey Tango Foxtrot_ washed out at the box office. Yet _War Dogs_ , from Bradley Cooper’s two-year-old shingle Joint Effort, made $43,000,000 more than its budget worldwide, to the point that Springbok has just announced its plan work with him on the long-percolating remake of _A Star is Born_ , in which he will star, produce and direct, and feature pop star Lady Gaga as his castmate. The truth is, the exact chemistry of a guaranteed hit movie is something that eludes everyone in the film business, regardless of how they got their foot in the producing door.  
  
If there’s any element that’s always crucial in Hollywood, it’s the modern definition of vanity—an excessive belief in one’s own abilities, which here can be channeled into making something extraordinary. Like one third of this year’s Best Picture nominees.

* * *

"Len Blavatnik's Access Acquires RatPac Entertainment Stake," by Patrick Hines, _Deadline Hollywood_ , April 18, 2017  
  
Access Entertainment, owned by Len Blavatnik, has acquired James Packer’s stake in RatPac Entertainment The deal makes Blavatnik partner with RatPac-Dune principal Steven Mnuchin and gives him co-ownership of RatPac’s film, TV and documentary business, and a big chunk of the RatPac-Dune venture that helps co-finance Warner Bros’ movie slate.  
  
Access Entertainment president Danny Cohen, former Director of BBC Television, will become CEO of RatPac, and co-chairman with Mnuchin. Terms of the investment were not disclosed.  
  
Packer, the son of Aussie media tycoon Kerry Packer, surprised many with the decision to exit. There had been rumblings that Packer and Mnuchin’s stakes were up for grabs, though reports about the latter came not to pass.  
  
In 2013, RatPac partnered with Dune Entertainment on a multi-year motion picture co-financing arrangement with Warner Bros for up to 75 pictures which have included _Gravity, The LEGO Movie, Annabelle, American Sniper, Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice, The Conjuring 2, Lights Out, Jonestown_ , _Black Mass_ , _The LEGO Batman Movie, Kong: Skull Island_ and the upcoming _Wonder Woman, Justice League_ and Stephen King’s _It_.  
  
RatPac also partners with New Regency with films including Best Picture winners _Birdman_ and _The Revenant_.  
  
It’s a major move into the U.S. entertainment business for Blavatnik’s Access, which currently has a drama financing venture with BBC Worldwide/Lookout Point, a 25% stake in international TV outfit Bad Wolf, and a development slate deal with House Productions. It also formerly had ownership of Icon Productions' UK assets and operation, but there was a definite clash of cultures and management.  
  
“Warner Bros. is one of the great Hollywood Studios,” Blavatnik said in a release announcing the deal. “I have great respect for their leadership and am delighted to be partnering with Kevin Tsujihara and the studio alongside the unique talents and insight of James Packer and Steven Mnuchin. Together we will build on RatPac’s strategic partnership with Warner Bros.”  
  
Said Mnuchin: “I am thrilled to be in partnership with Len and Danny. Len and I have shared the same vision and passion for movies, television and music over the years. Because of his experience and enthusiasm, RatPac Entertainment will be an even more formidable provider of quality entertainment worldwide.”  
  
Packer announced the creation of the film development, production and finance company in late 2012. The slate deal with Warner Bros came soon after that covered almost everything outside the studio’s Harry Potter franchise. RatPac has co-financed 67 films, grossing more than $10 billion in worldwide box office.  
  
“Len has an incredible track record launching really successful business ventures, including Access Entertainment,” said Kevin Tsujihara, Warner Bros’ chairman and CEO. ”We’re excited to continue our relationship with Brett and RatPac and look forward to working with Len, Danny and the entire Access team. I’d also like to thank James — he’s been a terrific partner the last three years, having worked with us on a number of key films, including _Batman v Superman, Jonestown_ and _The LEGO Batman Movie_.”

* * *

"Fyre Festival, Which Cost Thousands of Dollars Per Ticket, Devolves Into Giant Mess," by Elyse Wanshel, _Huffington Post_ , April 28, 2017

This is so not Instagram-worthy.

The Fyre Festival, a luxury music festival created by Ja Rule and Billy McFarland, creator and head of a "talent-booking" app called Fyre, was supposed take place this weekend on a “remote and private” island” in the Bahamas that was “once owned by Pablo Escobar,” according to _The Washington Post_.

Concert goers were seduced by ads that promised a glamorous event, and tickets cost between $5000 and $250,000, _Rolling Stone_ reports.

It was supposed to be a weekend in paradise.

However, shortly before the event was scheduled to begin, main headliners Nirvana, who had apparently been talking to festival heads in an attempt to wrangle the fee they were due but had not been paid, as well as the fact that Springbok Productions, the parent company of Nirvana's label Exploitation Records, had been receiving entreaties for its venture capital division, Springbok Ventures, to invest in the festival and the app, but had been receiving virtually no transparency regarding either, decided to investigate the festival site for themselves.

What they found when they went to the Bahamas was an absolute disaster zone. The stage area wasn't remotely ready. The promised luxury villas for the festival goers did not exist, and ramshackle Red Cross tents leftover to assist displaced victims of Hurricane Matthew, were being used to house the crowds. Virtually none of the amenities promised by the festival heads were there. Nirvana took photos and video of the festival site and uploaded it to social media, declaring it a massive fraud.

As a result, the Internet was apoplectic with rage, seeking refunds, and explanations for what was happening, and all that came from the Fyre group was an announcement that the festival was being cancelled due to "circumstances beyond our control."

The planned festival truly went viral when many social media "influencers" posted videos and an orange tile promoting it, and Ja Rule and McFarland had also touted both the festival and the app as game-changers for the industry. Now, in the wake of what occurred, the appearance of nothing but a smokescreen to take people's money and run, a whole of wave of questions are waiting to be answered. The only one that has spoken about it so far is Ja Rule, with the rapper saying on his Twitter that, "Fyre Festival is NOT MY FAULT!"

* * *

"Sony Pictures and Co-Financing Partner LStar Capital Cut Ties," by Ryan Faughdner, _Los Angeles Times_ , July 17, 2017  
  
Sony Pictures’ co-financing deal with LStar Capital is dead after three years, following a long period of box office struggles at the Culver City studio.  
  
LStar in 2014 agreed to invest in Sony’s movies as part of a $200-million pact that promised to mitigate the risks of potential duds. The pact wasn’t working well for either partner, and the companies have been reevaluating the deal for months, according to people with knowledge of the matter who weren’t authorized to speak publicly.  
  
Most studios have teamed with co-financing partners to share the burden of their expensive movie slates at a time when the film business is becoming riskier. Warner Bros. has a longtime arrangement with film production and financing company Village Roadshow, and Universal Pictures last year secured a deal for China’s Perfect World Pictures to help fund its films. Co-financiers cushion the blow when movies flop and also reap benefits when they do well.  
  
Sony had more flops than hits in recent years. While LStar got a boost from the recent success of _Spider-Man: Homecoming_ , the investor also felt the pain of duds including _The Brothers Grimsby_ , _Pixels_ and _Passengers_.  
  
For its part, LStar backed out of its commitment to co-finance Sony’s upcoming computer-animated comedy _The Emoji Movie_ and the sci-fi thriller _Flatliners_ , covering 25% of their respective production budgets.  
  
LStar is the credit financing arm of Lone Star Funds, a Dallas-based private equity firm. The deal with Sony Pictures, the movie unit of Tokyo-based Sony Corp., was its first film business investment.  
  
A representative for Lone Star declined to comment.  
  
“Lone Star has been a great partner for several years,” Sony Pictures said in a statement. “The decision to part ways was mutual, and won’t impact the studio’s plans or our strong slate of upcoming films moving forward.”  
  
Much has changed at Sony since the LStar deal was signed in mid-2014. The studio weathered multiple executive shakeups triggered by financial disappointments. While Amy Pascal still maintains control of the film unit, like she has since 1996, her original team is now gone. Tom Rothman has been brought in as her right hand and co-CEO. Sony Pictures Chairman Michael Lynton was recently replaced by former Fox television executive Tony Vinciquerra. Lynton is now chairman of Snapchat maker Snap Inc.  
  
Sony has not said whether it will seek a new financing partner.  
  
The company has experienced recent back-to-back hits with _Spider-Man: Homecoming_ , co-produced by Marvel Studios, and the Edgar Wright action film _Baby Driver_ , which starred Ansel Elgort and Willem Dafoe and was co-financed by Media Rights Capital.  
  
Along with _The Emoji Movie_ and _Flatliners_ , the studio’s slate includes gambles such as the Stephen King adaptation _The Dark Tower_ and a _Jumanji_ reboot.

* * *

"Springbok Denounces Sony's _Millennium_ Continuation," by Nancy Tartalgione, _Deadline Hollywood_ , October 9, 2017  
  
Sony Pictures Entertainment recently announced that it is working on _The Girl in the Spider's Web_ , a film that is a continuation of the series started by Stieg Larsson's _The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo_ , using the posthumously published fourth novel by David Lagercrantz as the basis. _Evil Dead_ (2013) and _Don't Breathe_ director Fede Alvarez is helming the new installment, out next year.  
  
However, it is going forward without its original partner that helped bring the original trilogy into reality, Springbok Productions. They helped sell Sony and MGM on doing the series in North America, and helped secure the talents of David Fincher for the first film, Samuel Bayer for the other two, and the continuous presence of Rooney Mara, Daniel Craig, Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross for all three. Now, Springbok is pulling up stakes from the series and moving on, calling the move to continue with Lagercrantz's book (and likely sequels) "ghoulish, exploitative, and in extremely poor taste."  
  
The official statement given for pulling out further describes the artistic frustration Sony's decision has given them: "The _Millennium_ series ended with Stieg Larsson's death in 2004. There is nowhere else to go in the series, because its architect is not here to complete it according to his vision. David Lagercrantz's book is nothing more than fanfiction churned out by the publisher, greedy for profits, without care for the integrity of the series, and any film based on this book will merely propagate that disservice."  
  
In this, Springbok is echoing the viewpoint of Larsson's domestic partner, Eva Gabrielsson, who has denounced the Lagercrantz novel quite vehemently, and jealously guards over the incomplete manuscript of a fourth book Larsson was working prior to his death. Springbok's statement goes on to say, "Our decision is completely an artistic one, and has nothing personal behind it. We have always maintained a great working relationship, and even friendship with Amy Pascal, Tom Rothman, Michael Lynton, and now Michael's replacement, Tony Vinciquierra, and we will continue to work alongside Sony in releasing many wonderful projects together. But sometimes, you have to know where to draw the line."  
  
Regardless of Springbok's refusal to join, Sony has gone full speed ahead for the project, and pronounces it will be pleasing to the fans of the trilogy. The role of Lisbeth Salander has been recast, with _The Crown's_ Claire Foy taking the reins from Mara. Craig, meanwhile, is currently cooling his heels to wait for the go ahead on _Bond 25_ , which has been announced to be his last film as 007.

* * *

“MGM, Annapurna Form U.S. Distribution Partnership,” By Dave McNary, _Variety_ , October 31, 2017  
  
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Annapurna Pictures have formed a new joint venture for theatrical distribution in the U.S.  
  
The companies said the partnership, announced Tuesday, marks MGM’s return to domestic distribution and a continued expansion of Annapurna, which launched a marketing and distribution operation earlier this year. The announcement was made by Gary Barber, MGM’s chairman and chief executive officer, and Megan Ellison, founder and CEO of Annapurna.  
  
Annapurna and MGM will share funding for the joint venture’s operations while each studio will retain creative control over their individual projects. The marketing and distribution team established at Annapurna will help in the campaigns for all MGM titles, which will be distributed under the MGM banner. Annapurna’s produced films will continue to be distributed under Annapurna’s already established label. Additional funding was also provided by Springbok Productions, which helped kick in startup funds and also plan to help produce films for the partnership.  
  
Through this joint venture, MGM expects to release approximately six to eight films per year beginning with Eli Roth’s re-imagining of the revenge thriller _Death Wish_ , starring Bruce Willis with a March 2 release. MGM will then release its reboot of romantic comedy _Valley Girl_ , starring Jessica Rothe, Josh Whitehouse, and Mae Whitman, on June 28; and pro wrestling comedy-drama _Fighting With My Family,_ starring Florence Pugh, Vince Vaughn, and Dwayne Johnson, on Sept. 14.  
  
MGM said it plans to release _Creed 2_ , starring Sylvester Stallone and Michael B. Jordan, in partnership with Warner Bros. on Nov. 21, 2018.  
  
MGM’s 2018 film slate also has titles that will be released through its existing studio partners, including _Tomb Raider_ , starring Alicia Vikander, with Warner Bros. on March 16; the animated _Sherlock Gnomes_ , voiced by Johnny Depp, James McAvoy, and Emily Blunt, with Paramount on March 23; and the remake _Overboard_ , starring Eugenio Derbez and Anna Faris, with Pantelion Films on April 20.  
  
Tuesday’s announcement did not address how MGM and producer Eon Productions will handle the next James Bond movie, saying only that those plans would be announced “at a later date.”  
  
The companies announced in July that the untitled 25th Bond film would be released on Nov. 8, 2019; Daniel Craig announced a month later that he’d return to play the superspy. Eon Productions’ deal with Sony ran out after 2015’s _Spectre_.  
  
As part of the agreement, MGM and Annapurna also announced that they have formed a releasing entity called Mirror to pursue theatrical releasing opportunities for third-party films. In addition, all films in the partnership, including the third-party ones, will have home video distribution by 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment.  
  
Barber said, “We could not be more excited about the start of our new partnership and look forward to working with Megan and the incredibly strong management team that she has built. MGM has successfully grown its operations over the last seven years, but we have been reliant upon our co-production partners to theatrically release our films. The time has come for MGM to regain control of its own destiny and return to U.S. theatrical distribution.”  
  
“This efficient distribution model enables us to retain more distribution rights to our feature film releases and create additional revenue opportunities for MGM,” Barber added.  
  
Ellison, who launched Annapurna (again with help from Springbok) in 2011, said, “We are thrilled to expand our relationship with Gary and the entire MGM team. MGM’s distinguished legacy and library of films has made them a pillar in the industry and I couldn’t be more proud and confident in our team’s ability to collaborate on the distribution of their upcoming slate.”  
  
Annapurna launched its distribution operation in August with _Detroit_. It said it expects to release a slate of at least approximately eight to twelve films per year including Richard Linklater’s _Where’d You Go, Bernadette_ ; Barry Jenkins’ _If Beale Street Could Talk_ , adapted from the James Baldwin novel; _The Sisters Brothers_ , based on Patrick deWitt’s novel; Jacques Audiard’s follow-up to _Dheepan_ ; Springbok Productions and Icon Productions’ live action anime adaptation _Black Butler_ , written and directed by Randall Wallace; and Adam McKay’s untitled Dick Cheney project.  
  
The partnership does not affect Orion Pictures, MGM’s relaunched standalone U.S. theatrical marketing and distribution company that has steadily been revving up for the past six years. Orion’s next film is romance _Every Day_ , starring Angourie Rice, Maria Bello, and Debby Ryan, on April 27.

* * *

"The Walt Disney Company To Acquire Twenty-First Century Fox, Inc., After Spinoff Of Certain Businesses, For $52.4 Billion In Stock," BusinessWire, December 14, 2017  
  
21st Century Fox to spin off Fox Broadcasting network and stations, Fox News, Fox Business, FS1, FS2 and Big Ten Network to its shareholders

  * _Acquisition complements and enhances The Walt Disney Company’s ability to provide consumers around the world with more appealing content and entertainment options_
  * _Transaction to include 21st Century Fox’s film and television studios, cable entertainment networks and international TV businesses_
  * _Popular entertainment properties including X-Men, Avatar, The Simpsons, FX Networks and National Geographic to join Disney’s portfolio_
  * _Expands Disney’s direct-to-consumer offerings with addition of 21st Century Fox’s entertainment content, capabilities in the Americas, Europe and Asia_
  * _Addition of extensive international properties, including Star in India, enhances Disney’s position as a truly global entertainment company with world-class offerings in key regions_
  * _Robert A. Iger to remain Chairman and CEO of The Walt Disney Company through 2024_



BURBANK, CA, and NEW YORK, NY —The Walt Disney Company (NYSE: DIS) and Twenty-First Century Fox, Inc. (“21st Century Fox” —NASDAQ: FOXA, FOX) today announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement for Disney to acquire 21st Century Fox, including the 20th Century Fox Film and Television studios, along with cable and international TV businesses, for approximately $52.4 billion in stock (subject to adjustment). Building on Disney’s commitment to deliver the highest quality branded entertainment, the acquisition of these complementary assets would allow Disney to create more appealing content, build more direct relationships with consumers around the world and deliver a more compelling entertainment experience to consumers wherever and however they choose. Immediately prior to the acquisition, 21st Century Fox will separate the Fox Broadcasting network and stations, Fox News Channel, Fox Business Network, FS1, FS2, Big Ten Network, Fox Sports Regional Networks, 39.1 percent ownership stake of European cable provider Sky, ownership stake in Tata Sky, 50 percent ownership stake of Endemol Shine Group and the Foxtel service in Australia into a newly listed company, Fox Corporation, that will be spun off to its shareholders, though there are other companies searching to purchase the half-stake of Endemol Shine and Sky, and these transactions are likely to occur. (The former News Corporation previously spun off and divided into two companies in 2013, the one currently being purchased by Disney, and another News Corporation, covering the print ownerships in Britain, Australia, and the U.S., including _The Wall Street Journal_ , _The New York Post_ and book publisher HarperCollins.) Disney will also sell its Mexican distribution joint venture, Walt Disney Studios Sony Pictures releasing de Mexico, to be fully owned by Sony.  
  
Under the terms of the agreement, shareholders of 21st Century Fox will receive 0.2745 Disney shares for each 21st Century Fox share they hold (subject to adjustment for certain tax liabilities as described below). The exchange ratio was set based on a 30-day volume weighted average price of Disney stock. Disney will also assume approximately $13.7 billion of net debt of 21st Century Fox. The acquisition price implies a total equity value of approximately $52.4 billion and a total transaction value of approximately $66.1 billion (in each case based on the stated exchange ratio assuming no adjustment) for the business to be acquired by Disney, which includes consolidated assets along with a number of equity investments.  
  
Popular Entertainment Properties to Join Disney Family  
  
Combining with Disney are 21st Century Fox’s critically acclaimed film production businesses, including 20th Century Fox, Fox Searchlight Pictures, Fox 2000 Pictures, and Blue Sky Animation Studios, which together offer diverse and compelling storytelling businesses and are the homes of individual films and IPs as _Miracle on 34th Street,_ Shirley Temple’s filmography, Marilyn Monroe’s filmography, _The King and I_ , _Cleopatra, The Sound of Music, Hello Dolly!, Patton, The French Connection, The Poseidon Adventure, The Last American Hero, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, The Omen, Silver Streak, All That Jazz,_ international rights to _Brazil, Revenge of the Nerds, The Princess Bride, Ladyhawke, Commando, The Fly, Big Trouble in Little China, Raising Arizona, Wall Street, Broadcast News, License to Drive, Big, Young Guns, Hot Shots!, The War of the Roses, Home Alone, Edward Scissorhands, My Cousin Vinny, The Sandlot, How Stella Got Her Groove Back, Independence Day, There’s Something About Mary, The Thin Red Line, Fight Club, Tigerland, Cast Away, Cheaper by the Dozen, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Night at the Museum, Avatar_ , _The Abyss, True Lies,_ international rights to _Braveheart_ , international rights to _Titanic_ , international rights to _Inuyasha_ , international rights to _Lincoln_ , international rights to _Bridge of Spies_ , _Planet of the Apes_ , _Alien_ , _Predator_ , _Die Hard_ , _Kingsman, Behind Enemy Lines,_ _Ice Age_ , _Robots_ , _Phone Booth, 28 Days Later, Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, Garden State, Sideways, DodgeBall: A True Underdog Story, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, Idiocracy, Marley & Me, Taken, Spy,_ _The Peanuts Movie_ , _Anastasia_ , _Ferngully: The Last Rainforest_ , _Romeo + Juliet (1996),_ _Moulin Rouge!, Australia,_ _X-Men_ , _Fantastic Four_ and _Deadpool_ , as well as _The Grand Budapest Hotel_ , _Mrs. Doubtfire_ , _Borat, Napoleon Dynamite, Kingdom of Heaven, Hussein, Walk the Line, Slumdog Millionaire, The Life of Pi,_ _Hidden Figures_ , _Gone Girl_ , _Birdman, The Revenant,_ _Fantastic Mr. Fox, The Book of Life, Isle of Dogs, 12 Years a Slave,_ _The Shape of Water, The Hateful Eight_ and _The Martian—_ and its storied television creative units, 20th Century Fox Television, FX Productions and Fox21, as well as the syndicator 20th Television, which have brought _M*A*S*H*, The Americans_ , _This Is Us_ , _Modern Family_ , _The Simpsons, King of the Hill, American Horror Story, Futurama, Family Guy, American Dad, Bob’s Burgers, The X-Files, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, 24, How I Met Your Mother, Sons of Anarchy, The Shield, Nip/Tuck, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Scream Queens, American Crime Story, Feud, Homeland_ and so many more hit TV series to viewers across the globe. 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment, which represents all these movies and shows, as well as home video releases for many films distributed by Newmarket Films (such as _Donnie Darko_ and _The Passion of the Christ_ ), represents the library of New World Pictures (the company founded by Roger Corman and responsible for _Death Race 2000_ , _Rock n’ Roll High School_ , _Breaker Morant_ , _Fitzcarraldo_ , _Children of the Corn_ , _The Philadelphia Experiment_ , _Hellraiser_ , _Heathers_ and a host of TV series like the original _The Incredible Hulk_ ), represents the library of MTM Enterprises (including _The Mary Tyler Moore Show, The Bob Newhart Show, Friends and Lovers, Rhoda, Hill Street Blues, Remington Steele, Newhart, St. Elsewhere, Bay City Blues, Capital News_ and _Evening Shade_ ) and recently signed a home video distribution deal for the recent MGM/Annapurna Pictures joint venture, will remain a name-only division of Buena Vista Home Entertainment/Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment. Disney will also acquire FX Networks, National Geographic Partners, Fox Sports Regional Networks, Fox Networks Group International and Star India. This collection will reunite all these networks with the former Fox Family Entertainment, which Disney bought, along with Saban Entertainment in 2001, creating Freeform (previously ABC Family) and maintaining the popular _Power Rangers_ franchise under its stewardship. Fox Stage Productions, which has developed a musical version of _Diary of a Wimpy Kid_ , is working on versions of _Mrs. Doubtfire_ and _The Devil Wears Prada_ , and has licensed _Anastasia_ and _Moulin Rouge!_ for Broadway productions, will be subsumed into Disney Theatrical Group. The Fox Research Library shall be folded into the Walt Disney Archives and Disney Imagineering Archives.  
  
“The acquisition of this stellar collection of businesses from 21st Century Fox reflects the increasing consumer demand for a rich diversity of entertainment experiences that are more compelling, accessible and convenient than ever before,” said Robert A. Iger, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, The Walt Disney Company. “We’re honored and grateful that Rupert Murdoch has entrusted us with the future of businesses he spent a lifetime building, and we’re excited about this extraordinary opportunity to significantly increase our portfolio of well-loved franchises and branded content to greatly enhance our growing direct-to-consumer offerings. The deal will also substantially expand our international reach, allowing us to offer world-class storytelling and innovative distribution platforms to more consumers in key markets around the world.”  
  
“This is a wonderful deal for Fox and Disney,” said Meryl Poster, chair of Walt Disney Studios, to whom all the new film production businesses will report. “This list of impressive and amazing films helps build our library, and expands our storytelling abilities, to touch a new range of topics and plotlines. Fox will join Touchstone Pictures in creating films with mature themes and storylines, though Touchstone will still remain active, and it will also be good for us to create great films for families, indie art, and Oscar-winning drama. Disney will now be awash in opportunities for creative filmmaking.”  
  
“We are extremely proud of all that we have built at 21st Century Fox, and I firmly believe that this combination with Disney will unlock even more value for shareholders as the new Disney continues to set the pace in what is an exciting and dynamic industry,” said Rupert Murdoch, Executive Chairman of 21st Century Fox. “Furthermore, I’m convinced that this combination, under Bob Iger’s leadership, will be one of the greatest companies in the world. I’m grateful and encouraged that Bob has agreed to stay on, and is committed to succeeding with a combined team that is second to none.”  
  
At the request of both 21st Century Fox and the Disney Board of Directors, Mr. Iger has agreed to continue as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of The Walt Disney Company through the end of calendar year 2024.  
  
“When considering this strategic acquisition, it was important to the Board that Bob remain as Chairman and CEO through 2024 to provide the vision and proven leadership required to successfully complete and integrate such a massive, complex undertaking,” said Orin C. Smith, Lead Independent Director of the Disney Board. “We share the belief of our counterparts at 21st Century Fox that extending his tenure is in the best interests of our company and our shareholders, and will be critical to Disney’s ability to effectively drive long-term value from this extraordinary acquisition.”  
  
Benefits to Consumers  
  
The acquisition will enable Disney to accelerate its use of innovative technologies to create more ways for its storytellers to entertain and connect directly with audiences while providing more choices for how they consume content. The complementary offerings of each company enhance Disney’s development of films, television programming and related products to provide consumers with a more enjoyable and immersive entertainment experience.  
  
Bringing on board 21st Century Fox’s entertainment content and capabilities, along with its broad international footprint and a world-class team of managers and storytellers, will allow Disney to further its efforts to provide a more compelling entertainment experience through its direct-to-consumer (DTC) offerings. This transaction will enable Disney’s recently announced Disney and ESPN-branded DTC offerings through the Disney-ABC Television Group, as well as through its longstanding streaming services contract with Blockbuster Entertainment, to create more appealing and engaging experiences, delivering content, entertainment and sports to consumers around the world wherever and however they want to enjoy it.  
  
The agreement also provides Disney with the opportunity to reunite the X-Men, Fantastic Four and Deadpool with the Marvel family under one roof and create richer, more complex worlds of inter-related characters and stories that audiences have shown they love. The addition of _Avatar_ to its family of films also promises expanded opportunities for consumers to watch and experience storytelling within these extraordinary fantasy worlds, as well officially bringing the visionary filmography of James Cameron essentially under one roof. Already, guests at Walt Disney World Resort can experience the magic of Pandora—The World of _Avatar_ , a new land inspired by the Fox film franchise that opened earlier this year. And through the incredible storytelling of National Geographic—whose mission is to explore and protect our planet and inspire new generations through education initiatives and resources—Disney will be able to offer more ways than ever before to bring kids and families the world and all that is in it.  
  
Enhancing Disney’s Worldwide Offerings  
  
Adding 21st Century Fox’s premier international properties enhances Disney’s position as a truly global entertainment company with authentic local production and consumer services across high-growth regions, including a richer array of local, national and global sporting events that ESPN can make available to fans around the world. The transaction boosts Disney’s international revenue mix and exposure.  
  
Disney’s international reach would greatly expand through the addition of Fox Networks International, with more than 350 channels in 170 countries; and Star India, which operates 69 channels reaching 720 million viewers a month across India and more than 100 other countries.  
  
Transaction Highlights  
  
The acquisition is expected to yield at least $2 billion in cost savings from efficiencies realized through the combination of businesses, and to be accretive to earnings before the impact of purchase accounting for the second fiscal year after the close of the transaction. Disney shall assume production, distribution and marketing of many film and television projects in the pipeline, though some whittling down will be necessary and some naturally won’t survive. Fox's marketing team will work closely with Disney's during the transition process, to ensure a smooth process and that transfer of marketing of certain projects will also be done smoothly. Many Fox marketing employees will be allowed to stay on, either as still part of Fox or directly in Disney. Through certain minority investors, such as Springbok Productions, continued funding will be provided for the mid-budget Fox 2000 Pictures label, to keep their name and projects alive, as well as for Blue Sky Animation. Fox Corporation will take ownership of the fabled 20th Century Fox studio lot in Century City and Fox Studios Australia in Sydney, and lease them to Disney, so that employees that still remain in their positions after the acquisition will keep returning to their offices at the lots.  
  
Terms of the transaction call for Disney to issue approximately 515 million new shares to 21st Century Fox shareholders, representing approximately a 25% stake in Disney on a pro forma basis. The per share consideration is subject to adjustment for certain tax liabilities arising from the spinoff and other transactions related to the acquisition. The initial exchange ratio of 0.2745 Disney shares for each 21st Century Fox share was set based on an estimate of such tax liabilities to be covered by an $8.5 billion cash dividend to 21st Century Fox from the company to be spun off. The exchange ratio will be adjusted immediately prior to closing of the acquisition based on an updated estimate of such tax liabilities. Such adjustment could increase or decrease the exchange ratio, depending upon whether the final estimate is lower or higher, respectively, than the initial estimate. However, if the final estimate of the tax liabilities is lower than the initial estimate, the first $2 billion of that adjustment will instead be made by net reduction in the amount of the cash dividend to 21st Century Fox from the company to be spun off. The amount of such tax liabilities will depend upon several factors, including tax rates in effect at the time of closing as well as the value of the company to be spun off.  
  
The Boards of Directors of Disney and 21st Century Fox have approved the transaction, which is subject to shareholder approval by 21st Century Fox and Disney shareholders, clearance under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act, a number of other non-United States merger and other regulatory reviews, and other customary closing conditions.  
  
About The Walt Disney Company  
The Walt Disney Company, together with its subsidiaries, is a diversified worldwide entertainment company with operations in four business segments: Media Networks, Parks and Resorts, Studio Entertainment, and Consumer Products & Interactive Media. Disney is a Dow 30 company and had annual revenues of $55.1 billion in its Fiscal Year 2017.  
  
About 21st Century Fox  
21st Century Fox is one of the world’s leading portfolios of cable, broadcast, film, pay TV and satellite assets spanning six continents across the globe. Reaching more than 1.8 billion subscribers in approximately 50 local languages every day, 21st Century Fox is home to a global portfolio of cable and broadcasting networks and properties, including FOX, FX, FXX, FXM, FS1, Fox News Channel, Fox Business Network, FOX Sports, Fox Sports Network, National Geographic Channels, Star India, 28 local television stations in the U.S. and more than 350 international channels; film studio 20th Century Fox Film; and television production studios 20th Century Fox Television, television syndicator 20th Television, and a 50 per cent ownership interest in Endemol Shine Group. The Company also holds approximately 39.1 per cent of the issued shares of Sky, Europe’s leading entertainment company, which serves nearly 23 million households across five countries.

* * *

"The Meek Shall Inherit The Turf," by Gabriel Sherman, _New York_ , January 5, 2018 **  
  
**_James Murdoch gets the last laugh in the fight for Rupert's empire_  
  
With the pending sale of 21st Century Fox to The Walt Disney Company, a $52 billion investment by The House That Walt And Mickey Built, Rupert Murdoch's empire is about to get a lot smaller. Just about all that will be left are the actual Fox-branded channels and the studio lots (though they will be leased out to Disney), which will be renamed under the umbrella of Fox Corporation, and the print assets under the second News Corp. But gone are Fox's film and television production assets (though they all will keep the Fox name like the Fox channels, disregarding any potential for confusion), and decades' worth of consolidation are effectively gone.  
  
The sale also represents the end of another chapter in the history of the Murdoch kingdom, the end of the fighting between Rupert's sons, James and Lachlan. The latter gave one year's notice, saying that he will leave his post when the Disney sale closes. This puts James firmly in charge of affairs, and also represents the fact that, politically, this will reorient the news assets to be more moderate compared to the unvarnished neoconservative viewpoint of decades past, as exemplified by Rupert and Lachlan. While after the removal of Roger Ailes and Bill O'Reilly back in 2005, and Sean Hannity's departure shortly after, as well as harsher penalties for Internet hate speech, Fox News and the print media had moved to appear far less extremist and bellicose in their rhetoric, they were often merely couching their viewpoints in a more veiled fashion, trying to walk a fine line between showing their real selves and appearing respectable (especially when sexual harassment and assault scandals continued to pop up after Ailes and O'Reilly's departures). Now, the last vestiges of their original image will be swept away, a move that has led to many of the network's most notable "talent" leaving to go to far more fringe outfits.  
  
"Make no mistake, this is an absolute sea change," says one longtime staffer on the 21st Century Fox board. "Rupert's vision has effectively come to an end. It's hard to say how he feels about all this, given that he hasn't really been present or involved in nearly 15 years, because of all his health issues. The fact that James, who has been more left-of-center compared to his father and brother, has picked up the keys to the kingdom, and helped usher a mammoth yard sale of much of it, is beyond astonishing. None of us could have ever imagined something like this happening as little as a decade ago, even after some of the changes had taken effect. The fact that the Murdoch family will also have no seats on the Disney board, and that James doesn't particularly care about that even though he'd clearly angled for it, is beyond mindblowing. It's like waking up in bizarro world."  
  
Beyond the fact that James' ascendancy means Lachlan's exit, another Murdoch sibling is also quickly on the rise. Sister Elisabeth has formed her own imprint, Locksmith Animation, which has a first-look deal with 20th Century Fox, but which could easily change after delivering one or two films, and could also change depending on how Disney feels about that deal. Elisabeth is also a key investor in SpringHill Entertainment, the production company of NBA superstar LeBron James, who has been seeking to branch out in film and television projects, most notably a James-starring sequel to the cult classic _Space Jam_ , which famously starred Michael Jordan as playing in a basketball game with the Looney Tunes. Elisabeth is certainly a potential rising star, especially given her lack of political baggage on either side of the spectrum.  
  
As for Rupert, besides the glowing words he gave in the press release announcing the sale to Disney, the fact that an empire he spent his life building will be dismantled must weigh on him quite heavily. Of course, he's also been able to enjoy the fruits of semiretirement, especially with his marriage to Jerry Hall, formerly the romantic partner of Mick Jagger, back in 2016. Regardless, the Disney deal effectively will take everything and everyone into unprecedented territory, and it remains to be seen what the end result of it all will be. It also effectively signals another sign of the end of the age of the media barons of old, when the entertainment industry was carved up by the likes of Marvin Davis, Barry Diller, Sumner Redstone, Ted Turner and Murdoch. A more amorphous version of the map of things is clearly about to emerge.

* * *

"Media Rights Capital, Dick Clark Productions, THR-Billboard Form Combined Company," by Andrew Wallenstein, _Variety_ , February 1, 2018 **  
  
**Todd Boehly is hoping some of the various media properties he couldn’t find buyers for will fare better as one combined entity.  
  
Live-event producer Dick Clark Productions and entertainment-news provider Billboard-Hollywood Reporter Media Group, which were nearly snatched up by Dalian Wanda Group last year, are joining forces with another Boehly investment, TV/film producer Media Rights Capital, to form Valence Media.  
  
But the point of the newly configured group is not to cut costs or better set up the properties for sale, according to Modi Wiczyk, who will extend his oversight to all of Valence along with fellow MRC co-founder Asif Satchu.  
  
Wiczyk envisions the three companies within Valence as just the first steps toward growing into a larger business through acquisitions and building new properties in-house.  
  
“What we have a as a foundation from day one is expertise and relationships across film, scripted TV, live events and digital media,” Wiczyk told _Variety._ “That’s a great base to build from.”  
  
Valence is where Boehly is parking all of the investments in the media vertical of his holding company Eldridge Industries, which continues to place bets across other sectors ranging from real estate to insurance, including a stake in MLB’s Dodgers franchise in Los Angeles.  
  
A minority stake in a fourth property, film distributor A24, will also be tucked into Valence, but operate independently. Media buying giant WPP will see its investment in MRC carry over into Valence.  
  
Boehly’s move comes nearly a year after the disintegration of a $1 billion sale of DCP to Wanda, which suddenly pulled out at the 11th hour before the acquisition could be completed. DCP is best known as the producer of the Golden Globes, which is currently the subject of negotiations with NBC and the Hollywood Foreign Press Association that will determine its future TV home.  
  
In a press release announcing the launch of Valence, the company pegs the enterprise value of Valence at $3 billion. But DCP alone is understood to be valued at $700 million in addition to debt under the terms of the Wanda deal.  
  
Allen Shapiro will become executive chairman at DCP while Mike Mahan will become CEO. Shapiro previously served as CEO while Mahan was president.  
  
Boehly will serve as chairman of Valence. Its businesses will continue to be operated by their current management teams, which will report into Wiczyk and Satchu, who will continue to oversee MRC.  
  
The production company has a broad range of TV and film properties including _House of Cards_ , the Blockbuster Entertainment series that is now entering its final season.  
  
Valence is also hoping that bringing the businesses together will yield more collaboration between them, such as cross-platform opportunities for marketers looking to scale their buys across properties that didn’t coordinate ad sales previously.  
  
While Wiczyk touted the synergies that could be achieved by more tightly integrating operations of the various businesses contained within Valence, he said the editorial independence of the publications within the Billboard-THR unit would be preserved.  
  
“The integrity of editorial is of paramount importance and must be protected assiduously,” said Wiczyk. “We will be looking at best practices at companies like Disney, which has ABC, and plenty of media companies where there are holding companies that create productions in some way or another.”  
  
Billboard-THR has been on Boehly’s books since 2009, when he purchased the publications while president of private-equity giant Guggenheim Partners. He took the news brands with him when he left Guggenheim and started Eldridge.  
  
The move to launch Valence had been anticipated since word filtered out last December during the Christmas holiday season that the formation of the new entity was afoot. Goldman Sachs, Moelis & Co. and RBC, which had been lining up buyers for the properties, shepherded the Valence transaction.

* * *

"Ryan Murphy Inks Giant Deal With Blockbuster Entertainment," by Nellie Andreeva, _Deadline Hollywood_ , February 13, 2018  
  
Another mega TV producer is leaving a longtime studio home to head to Blockbuster Entertainment. In what is believed to be the biggest TV pact ever, Ryan Murphy, an Emmy, Golden Globe and Peabody Award-winning producer, director and writer, has signed an overall deal with Blockbuster, which could reach as high as $300 million, sources said. It starts July 1.  
  
Under the five-year agreement, called “the deal of a lifetime for an artist of a lifetime” by one industry insider, Murphy and his Ryan Murphy Productions (which maintains some degree of autonomy despite his also being part of the development of live action television projects for Springbok Productions) will produce new series and films exclusively at Blockbuster Entertainment. Murphy is moving to Blockbuster, which also is home of top broadcast drama showrunner Shonda Rhimes, after a long stint at 20th Century Fox Television. He was one of the biggest names on the talent roster of the studio, which is poised to become part of Disney as part of the looming acquisition, making his departure a blow to the combined entity, though it will still maintain the series he has done for FOX TV/FX as part of the library as well as new seasons.  
  
“Ryan Murphy’s series have influenced the global cultural zeitgeist, reinvented genres and changed the course of television history. His unfaltering dedication to excellence and to give voice to the underrepresented, to showcase a unique perspective or just to shock the hell out of us, permeates his genre-shattering work,” said Ted Sarandos, Chief Content Officer at Blockbuster Entertainment. "From _Nip/Tuck_ – our first licensed series – to _American Crime Story:_ _The People v. O.J. Simpson_ and _American Horror Story,_ we’ve seen how his brand of storytelling captivates consumers and critics across the globe. His celebrated body of work and his contributions to our industry speak for themselves, and we look forward to supporting Ryan in bringing his broad and diverse stories to the world.”  
  
Blockbuster and Disney-Fox were among a slew of suitors for the prolific writer-producer-director, whose current deal with 20th Century Fox TV expires this year. The streaming giant had aggressively pursued him and already had gotten in the Ryan Murphy business by outbidding other buyers twice to snag both of his streaming series, _Ratched_ and _The Politician,_ neither of which will be produced by Springbok, though they will help finance them.  
  
“The history of this moment is not lost on me,” said Murphy. “I am a gay kid from Indiana who moved to Hollywood in 1989 with $55 in savings in my pocket, so the fact that my dreams have crystallized and come true in such a major way is emotional and overwhelming to me. I am awash in genuine appreciation for Ted Sarandos, Reed Hastings and Cindy Holland at Blockbuster for believing in me and the future of my company which will continue to champion women, minorities and LGBTQ heroes and heroines, and I am honored and grateful to continue my partnership with my friends and peers at Fox on our existing shows.”  
  
Murphy, one of the top creator-producers working in television today, has pulled off the rare feat of launching commercial and award-winning hits on both broadcast and cable. His jump to Blockbuster is another hit for the traditional TV business, which has been upended by a deep-pocketed digital upstart with the creators of some of the biggest broadcast and cable series now calling the streaming platforms home, including Murphy, _Grey’s Anatomy_ ‘s Rhimes, _Friends_ ‘ Marta Kauffman and _Weeds_ ’ Jenji Kohan and _The Gilmore Girl_ s’ Amy Sherman-Palladino.  
  
As Murphy admitted at TCA in January, he also had been courted by Walt Disney CEO Bob Iger. Disney is in the process of acquiring key Fox assets, including 20th TV. While I hear Murphy considered both options, the timing worked better for Blockbuster, which provided a clear vision for the future and an opportunity for Murphy to pursue TV series, films and documentaries — all under the same roof. Meanwhile, the alternative at the combined Disney-Fox company was still a subject to speculation because the deal is far off.  
  
Murphy’s Blockbuster deal puts an end — at least for the time being — to one of the most successful collaborations between a creator and an executive in television.  
  
“I wish Ryan well, and I know everyone at our company feels the same,” said Fox TV Group chairman Dana Walden, who has worked closely with Murphy for years and counts him as a close personal friend. “We are lucky to have so many projects with him.”  
  
Indeed, all seven series Murphy has on the air are with 20th TV/Fox 21 TV Studios, and, at least for the next year, he is expected to be focused on them, continuing to work with the executive teams at the studio as well as at Fox and FX, even after the Disney deal closes, and the shows will remain there for the premiere of new seasons in the years to come. I hear Walden was approached about joining Murphy at Blockbuster. She is currently committed to her job at Fox, where her contract expires later this year, and has been rumored for a potential top post at Disney-Fox. Murphy and Walden reportedly had explored potentially launching a company together and, given the duo’s long history and very close relationship, it is possible for them to re-team in the future.  
  
Murphy’s new original series, _Ratched_ (a prequel/origin story for _One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest_ ) and _The Politician_ , will premiere globally on Blockbuster Entertainment. Murphy also oversees production on _American Crime Story, American Horror Story_ and _Feud_ on FX, _9-1-1_ on Fox and the upcoming _Pose_ , also on FX. His previous series credits include the hit _Nip/Tuck_ on FX.  
  
Since the game-changing success of _Nip/Tuck_ , which helped put FX on the original series map, Murphy has been closely associated with FX where he is currently shepherding four series, including the network’s top-rated _American Horror Story_ and _American Crime Story_ franchises.  
  
“For more than 15 years, we have enjoyed an outstanding partnership with Ryan Murphy and we look forward to continuing that relationship on our four shows under his creative leadership,” FX Networks CEO John Landgraf said. “With more than 20 scripted original series on our schedule or upcoming, FX has a very successful track record of identifying and developing talented writers who have produced award-winning hit shows and it will continue to do so.”  
  
While Murphy had been wooed for awhile, the deal with Blockbuster came down quickly, and it was instigated by the proposed Disney-Fox pact, which created uncertainty around his long-time home.  
  
“Three months ago, I thought I was going to be buried on the Fox lot; I had my mausoleum picked out,” Murphy said in January. “I started working there in my 30s, and many of us had young children who would play together.”  
  
Back then, Murphy said that he had received a phone call from Iger, reiterating that Disney was interested in what he had created in the sophisticated adult TV space. “The stuff that I do isn’t specifically Disney,” Murphy said. “I was concerned: Do I have to start putting Mickey Mouse in _American Horror Story_?”  
  
The deal for Murphy was negotiated by CAA.

* * *

"Relativity Media Files For Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Again After Racking Up $500 Million+ Debt In 2 Years," by Trey Williams, IndieWire, May 3, 2018

_Lantern Capital Partners and Spyglass Entertainment founders announce joint venture to buy assets and rebuild or consolidate the studio  
  
_ Despite an attempted rebound, Relativity Media is filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy again.

The studio filed in U.S. bankruptcy court on Thursday after announcing that it’s entered an agreement with a joint venture by Lantern Capital Partners and Gary Barber and Roger Birnbaum-founders of Spyglass Entertainment and former heads of MGM- to sell the firm all of its assets.

Relativity founder Ryan Kavanaugh said in a statement that the company “faced the significant challenge of a complicated capital structure and an evolving industry.”

The cost of the acquisition wasn’t announced, but the sale isn’t a done deal yet.

Lantern Capital Partners is a Dallas-based private equity firm founded by Andy Mitchell and Milos Brajovic.

“We are very excited to acquire the assets of Relativity Media, and we believe there are numerous opportunities to reinvigorate and expand the business,” Barber said in a statement. “We have a strong development slate and are looking forward to bringing these films to audiences through our distribution partnerships, including through our agreement with Blockbuster Entertainment. We are committed to putting the necessary resources into the business so that we can attract and retain new talent, create outstanding original film, television and digital content and distribute that content across multiple platforms.”

Lantern and Relativity hope to have the deal finalized within 45-to-60 days, but they will have to wait for approval from the bankruptcy court.

The court will have to go through the standard bankruptcy processes and, if other potential buyers come forward, hold an auction.

In its filing with the court, Relativity said it had somewhere between $500 million and $1 billion in debt, compared with $10 million-to-$50 million in assets.

If the Lantern-Spyglass joint venture secures the acquisition for Relativity it said it intends to either provide enough capital for Relativity to resume its operations and continue to development projects and distribute them through existing and future platforms, including Blockbuster Entertainment, with which the companies said Relativity still has a distribution agreement; or assume the Relativity assets and merge them with Spyglass Entertainment as part of a new company with an all-new strategy.

“Our simple message to the industry is that Relativity Media is open for business and we look forward to demonstrating that we intend to operate a substantial and well financed entertainment company with strong and stable leadership,” Birnbaum said. “We recognize that Relativity Media has had its fair share of challenges during the past several years, and that we need to rebuild trust and confidence in the business. It is our full intention and commitment to put those past chapters behind us and resume the business of creating and distributing outstanding content, be it as still under the relativity name or as part of a new structure. We are confident that we have the collective industry expertise, relationships and, perhaps most importantly, the financial resources to fulfill that commitment and build a successful and sustainable business.

“Lantern will now be focused on completing the sale process as expeditiously as possible and ensuring that once the transaction is finalized Relativity Media can hit the ground running with appropriate financial backing and a strong leadership team,” Mitchell said.

* * *

Production Notes for _Bohemian Rhapsody_ , May 31, 2018

_Bohemian Rhapsody_ is a foot-stomping celebration of the music and legacy of Queen, and its legendary frontman Freddie Mercury. Experience a journey covering the whole story, from the time the band first came together in 1970 London to Freddie’s tragic death from AIDS in November 1991. It is a thrilling, emotional, and ultimately hopeful story that demonstrates how breaking all the rules can pay wonders and why these four bandmates and friends were and are so loved by the world.

20th Century Fox and Regency Enterprises are proud to present this labor of love that took almost a decade to become a reality, and finally has thanks to producer Graham King and Springbok Productions, the powerhouse conglomerate founded by Kurt Cobain, Charlize Theron and Jennifer Todd and has racked impressive successes in film, television, streaming video, musical theatre, video games and in the music industry. As with all Springbok projects, the three founders are credited as producers, alongside King and Queen’s longtime manager Jim “Miami” Beach. Executive producers are Arnon Milchan, Denis O’ Sullivan, Justin Haythe, Dexter Fletcher, Jane Rosenthal, Paula Wagner, Michael De Luca and Irving Azoff.

“This is a project that we are truly proud to be involved in,” Cobain states. “As a kid, the music of Queen always entranced me, and I enjoyed it immensely. Freddie Mercury was a larger than life individual that also caught my imagination, and I still remember all too well where I was when I heard that he’d died. That day, we were performing in Amsterdam, doing a show at the Paradiso club, being filmed for TV broadcast. So, when we all heard that there was a project in the works to tell his story, and that of Queen, I personally instructed the Springbok brass, especially Jennifer, to keep tabs on the situation, and see if it would suit us.”

The story of the movie’s conception begins in 2010, when Graham King had a conversation with British playwright and screenwriter Peter Morgan, best known for scripts like _The Last King of Scotland_ , _The Other Boleyn Girl_ and _Frost/Nixon_. “I told him I really wanted to do the story of Queen, that it might be an interesting thing to make a film for. Now, I didn’t have the rights at that moment, and I knew getting them would take quite some time, if it was even going to happen at all. That said, Peter was hooked and began writing a script on spec at once.” The wishful thinking seemed to pay off, as Jim Beach and surviving band members Brian May and Roger Taylor were definitely interested in doing a movie. A preliminary deal came together, in which comic actor Sacha Baron Cohen was in talks to play Freddie, and Dexter Fletcher was set to direct. However, this did not come to pass, as Cohen, and then eventually Fletcher, dropped out. (Fletcher is currently directing Elton John biopic “fantasy musical” _Rocketman_ , which Springbok is also attached to.)

For a brief moment, actor Ben Whishaw was in talks to play Freddie, but this was scuttled on King’s orders, when he went to his erstwhile partners and declared, “I’ve found Freddie.” The actor he had in mind was Rami Malek, best known for the lead role in the USA Network series _Mr. Robot_. “I just looked at him, and I realized, this what we’re looking for,” King states. “Rami has charisma, a quiet strength, and he truly is a director’s actor. If I can be blunt, I never liked the ideas of Sacha or Ben, because I simply felt that a fully white actor would not fit Freddie, and that’s why those ideas didn’t work out, because I said so. Well, that and Sacha wasn’t taking things seriously enough, still acting like he was doing _Borat_ or _Bruno_ , a total caricature.” Malek was quite entranced by the idea, and auditioned by sending a video of him singing Queen’s works, and doing a faux-interview in the role of Freddie, and Fox and Regency were convinced at once. “When I got the role, I’ll admit, I was a bit nervous, because I thought to myself, ‘this is going to affect the arc of my career in a way I can’t take back, no matter what.’ It’s big shoes to fill, but I also felt that I could take on the challenge. So I went to read every book about Freddie and Queen there was, see all the documentaries, interviews and concert footage. It was quite a rush. It’s a fascinating journey, since we’re dealing with someone who was unlikely to be a rock star, an immigrant dealing with fitting in. Could he have been as big as he became if he stayed Farrokh Bulsara from Zanzibar? I don’t think so.”

“We also liked the idea of Rami,” Todd states. “We knew him already from him playing the recurring character of Flip McVicker on _BoJack Horseman_ , and we knew there was more to him than he’s shown previously. So naturally, we grew quite excited.” Springbok attached themselves at once, though not without some demands that threatened to once again upset the trajectory of the film and ensure it wouldn’t get made. By this time, a director had not been chosen, but Peter Morgan’s script was dropped, and a new one by Anthony McCarten, writer of _The Theory of Everything_ and _Darkest Hour_ , and who had personally done interviews with May and Taylor for his notes, had been submitted, along with further uncredited rewrites by Justin Haythe. While Fox, Regency and King were impressed, Springbok’s founders were not, to say the least. “Kurt was ripshit,” Todd states bluntly. “He was so angry, he threw his copy of the script across the room and his hands were shaking. When he spoke, he just said in this low, growling voice, ‘I can’t support something that’s just standard hackneyed, formulaic Hollywood drivel. The entire focus of the story is wrong, the chronology is in tatters, and they took the standard cheat route in showing tension.’ After he calmed down, we went right up Graham and the others and told him that this script was not going to work for us. I also remember, Kurt looked at Brian and Roger and he said, ‘Why would you be okay with this?’ Brian just looked at us, clasping his hands and saying, ‘Well, it’s just a movie, and this is how movies are done. All that matters to Roger and I is that the music and Freddie are done right. Besides, we did the standard signing away the rights, so Roger and I don’t get a penny.’”

Thankfully, Springbok did have an alternative on hand to offer at once. “Back when Kurt told me to keep tabs on the project back in 2010, I also put out feelers to see who could come up with their own script on spec, and for us to offer if we didn’t like what the powers that be didn’t provide something good enough. And we found a great choice for that.” That person was none other than Jay Cocks, the former magazine critic turned screenwriter who wrote notable scripts such as Martin Scorsese’s _The Age of Innocence_ , _Gangs of New York_ and _Silence_ ; Katheryn Bigelow’s _Strange Days_ (cowritten with James Cameron) and her Joan of Arc biopic _Company of Angels_ ; and who also did uncredited dialogue polishing for _Titanic_. “He fully immersed himself into the world of Queen and Freddie, becoming basically an expert in the level of say, Deadheads are,” Theron posits. “He was determined to nail all the details down, capture everything, such as Freddie’s treatments for AIDS, his various relationships over the decades, Queen’s blowback for performing at Sun City. He kept elements of Peter’s and Anthony’s scripts, mainly in terms of video and concert reenactments, especially the entire Live Aid set, but it was predominantly new. He also came out with a script that told the entire story, and that was an hour longer, giving it a running time of 215 minutes.” When the new script was checked, everyone agreed it was a far better version, and that this was the vision used going forward. Morgan and McCarten are given writing credits for story, while Cocks has full credit for the screenplay.

Armed with a new script, the search was on for a director, and thankfully, Springbok also stepped to the plate again with the offer of Paul Greengrass. While having a resume that stretches to the ‘90s, Greengrass first became prominent for handling _The Bourne Supremacy_ and _The Bourne Ultimatum_ , as well as for his harrowing 9/11 film _United 93_. Greengrass has also channeled his sensitivity to facts and admiration for courage in movies such as _Captain Phillips_ , _Midnight Ride_ , _Memphis_ , _Trail of Tears_ , _Karen Carpenter: Goodbye to Love_ and _Meat Loaf: To Hell and Back_ , all but the first two of which were also produced by Springbok. “Paul is one of the best filmmakers out there today,” Todd states, “and we knew he was perfect for the job. He captures verisimilitude in spades, and he knows how to make a story soar.” Greengrass, quite humbly, shrugs. “I just like stories, and I like telling them. And making sure the story is real matters a great deal to me.”

Now with a perfect Freddie, a script that hit the target, and a director to take on the project, casting and crew was next on the bill. The most important matter was casting the other members of Queen. Landing the roles were Gwilym Lee as guitarist Brian May, Ben Hardy as drummer Roger Taylor, and Joe Mazzello, also American like Malek, as bassist John Deacon, who retired from all things Queen-related in 1997. “I knew going in that next to Freddie, Brian was the most important to get right,” King says. “Brian is in many ways, the unsung hero, the secret weapon that made Queen great, and he has also been the one that has been the most outspoken and open. Gwil really captured him so well, it’s uncanny.” “It’s often better to land relative unknowns for roles in movies like this than give them to big A-list talents,” Todd replies. “The diamond in the rough will shine more and tend to actually be able to stretch themselves for the part.” Among the ways of stretching were for the four men to learn how to play the songs. Although the actual studio and live recordings of Queen, as well as vocal stems by Canadian singer Marc Martel, who is the singer in the officially authorized Queen Extravaganza band for his uncanny soundalike vocals echoing Freddie, to cover a cappella moments of Freddie composing the songs and singing to himself, would be what the audiences heard, the actors would actually play the notes and Malek would actually sing the lyrics when the cameras rolled, to ensure it looked as real as possible. “Merely lip syncing simply was not going to do,” King responds. “Even if it’s the recordings being used, to actually do the parts was needed.”

Malek hired a dialect coach to nail Freddie’s speaking voice, and a “movement coach” to learn all of Freddie’s stage movements. “A choreographer can’t do the job, because for someone like Freddie, planning everything mark by mark doesn’t work for him. Knowing the ins and outs of what made him such a dynamic frontman requires more specialized training.” Malek also took piano lessons to tackle that famous element as well. The other three actors got specialized guitar, bass and drum tutors, and in Lee and Hardy’s cases, even received some pointers from May and Taylor, who were hired as executive music producers to especially ensure the music was done well and respectfully. “It was quite impressive, even if it was a bit short-lived,” Lee states. “We only had about two months to really get up to speed on all the material before we began filming, and we had to look like a band that has been together for years. That requires the vaunted ’10,000 hours’, and we didn’t have time for that, especially not to learn everything directly from Brian and Roger. But what we did learn was incredible enough, it will last forever, especially given how often Brian and Roger were on set when they weren’t on tour with Adam (Lambert, the _American Idol_ contestant who has a burgeoning career of his own and now sings with May and Taylor doing Queen’s music).” For further verisimilitude, May and Taylor lent instruments from their actual collection, such as the drum kit Taylor used when recording _A Night at the Opera_ , using May’s original Red Special guitar for certain scenes, and the actual Fender Telecaster May used to play “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” during their legendary Live Aid set.

Cinematographer Newton Thomas Sigel, who is known as constantly collaborating with the now-disgraced director Bryan Singer on his filmography, was put in charge for making these reenactments of performances and Queen’s iconic music videos come to life. “Production designer Aaron Haye and I had this particular soundstage area set aside to do several of the reenactments,” Sigel reports. “It could serve as a pub during Queen’s early days, become a stage for their first tour of America, and be transformed to represent Hyde Park, the Budokan, the old Montreal Forum, Milton Keynes or Madison Square Garden. We found an abandoned English airfield for the Rock in Rio, Live Aid and 1986 Magic Tour scenes, to which we’d built the stage area, and digitally recreate the crowds at the original Rock in Rio or the old Wembley Stadium (which was demolished and replaced with a new one in 2007) around it. It was important to get the lighting right, so we had to get actual old, gel canister lights and some basic PARs to rig up and use, because Vari-Lites, LEDs and modern lights wouldn’t work. Of course, by using the old styles, the stages got extremely hot, around 150 degrees. But the guys didn’t complain and didn’t quit, and were always eager to go again and do better.” To augment the audience in the live recordings, Queen + Adam Lambert recorded several shows during their 2017 European tour and used the audience reactions to be mixed in with the preexisting audience for more intensity and heft.

A lot of work was also done recreating Queen’s music videos, notably the _Top of the Pops_ rendition of “Killer Queen”, “Bohemian Rhapsody”, “Don’t Stop Me Now”, “I Want to Break Free”, “One Vision”, “I Want It All”, “Headlong”, “I’m Going Slightly Mad”, and “These Are the Days of Our Lives.” For assistance in that area, Rudi Dolezal and Hannes Rossacher, a duo of Austrian music video and documentary filmmakers operating as DoRo Productions, and who had an extensive history of collaborating with Queen on video projects, offered their generous assistance. “It was great of them to do so,” Sigel admits. “They provided all their notes and raw dailies to us to use as reference, and we took great care in getting it right.” Of course, most of this material is shown in an abridged form in the movie. “We had to whittle down most of the reenactments of concerts and videos down for the movie to fit 215 minutes. The only thing shown full length in the movie is the Live Aid set, which simply had to be complete to work, and a ‘fantasy sequence’, in which we did a video for ‘The Show Must Go On’, the type of thing Queen might have made if Freddie had been healthy enough to do a shoot. Though the full versions of these other scenes will make great bonus content on the Blu-ray. Maybe it’ll need two discs, even!”

Much care to bring all this to life also had to be done with getting the outfits done. Costume designer Julian Day (also engaged in the same capacity for _Rocketman_ ) had invaluable help from Justin Shirley-Smith, the official Queen archivist, who also helped the other aspects of production, to open the photo database to show what each man looked like. “We were obsessive in that sense,” Day replies, “down to asking, ‘What kind of socks did Roger wear that day?’ A lot of work went to getting the Live Aid outfits, such finding a tank top that was cut the exact same way as the one Freddie wore, the same brand and cut of jeans, the same belt, the same singlet on his arm, and the exact same pair of Adidas sneakers he wore.” May and Taylor also revealed that they’d held onto a lot of their past outfits, and lent them to the production. These included a lot of “glam rock” outfits of the ‘70s, and of Japanese-inspired fashion that the band picked up from their many visits there. Great care was taken also create a series of wigs and facial hair for Malek to copy Freddie’s various changing appearances, especially in the length of his hair and his famous mustache, and prosthetics to mimic his equally famous teeth that were never fixed. And the sets also had to really capture Freddie at the massive home for himself, from his interests in collecting artwork, fashion sense, admiration for singers like Aretha Franklin, and his love for his numerous cats. “I think we definitely have a sense of who these people were, especially Freddie.”

Admittedly, the most challenging part to do well was the last hour of the film, which begins after the Live Aid scene and has a predominant focus on Freddie’s final lasting relationship with Jim Hutton, his final works with Queen, and his final years, living with AIDS. One element of invaluable assistance was the recently published biography of Freddie, _Somebody to Love_ by Matt Richards and Mark Langthorne, which includes many details about the spread of HIV/AIDS worldwide and the treatments Freddie took for his condition. “It gave us a lot to work with,” Greengrass states. “And we knew we could do something to really show how Freddie lived with this condition for as long as he did. Of course we couldn’t go into the detail the book did in putting it against the context of AIDS as a whole and how treatment has evolved, but we did decide to create something for the behind the scenes material to go with the Blu-ray release, a 45-minute documentary about AIDS, its spread and the evolution of treatment. It’s especially riveting for those whose exposure about the early years of AIDS is still only really based on _And the Band Played On_ , _The Normal Heart_ , _Dallas Buyers Club_ and _Angels in America_. _Dallas Buyers Club_ in particular is big to address because, while it’s a great movie, it distorts so much about the early treatment AZT, which while it IS worthless after a year, it’s not the useless garbage that movie portrays it as. After all, AZT is still part of modern combination therapy, and the Mexican drugs shown in the movie have been found to be quack products, which is why the FDA cracked down on them. It’s probably as big a pernicious myth as Gaetan Dugas being Patient Zero of AIDS. The documentary will certainly help put Freddie’s last days in context and really open a lot of people’s eyes.”

Other major casting for the film includes Lucy Boynton as Freddie’s first lover, Mary Austin, whom he left his entire estate to in his will; Aidan Gillen (best known for roles in _The Wire_ , _The Dark Knight Rises_ and _Game of Thrones_ ) as John Reid, Queen’s early manager who was also best known for managing Elton John (another _GoT_ alum, Richard Madden, will play the role in _Rocketman_ ); Tom Hollander as Jim “Miami” Beach; Allen Leech as Paul Prenter, Freddie’s personal assistant and lover who was quite a negative influence on him and a parasite who betrayed him after he was cast out; Aaron McCusker as Jim Hutton, Freddie’s final lover; Dermot Murphy as Live Aid organizer and hero Bob Geldof; Tim Plester as Queen’s famed early producer Roy Thomas Baker; and Chris Farley in the composite role of Ray Foster, an EMI executive based on several who is unhappy with _A Night at the Opera_ and initially rejects “Bohemian Rhapsody” as a single. “Besides being on old friend, Chris has proven himself as a surprising talent,” Cobain declares. “He especially did so when he worked under Paul for _Meat Loaf: To Hell and Back_ , and really brought out what a rollercoaster ride Meat has had in his life. It was also a chance to acknowledge a debt that can never be repaid.” Farley chose the role as a tribute to the late Mike Myers, who died in 2001 from viral pneumonia; specifically doing the character in the style of Fat Bastard, the obese henchman of Dr. Evil in the _Austin Powers_ films, who speaks with an exaggerated Scottish accent. “Before he died, Mike told Chris that if he’d done _Shrek_ instead, he would’ve used the Fat Bastard voice for him. Not to mention, there’s a line in there that specifically does a meta reference to _Wayne’s World_ , and the scene where they headbang in the car to ‘BoRhap.’ The world still misses Mike’s comic genius every day, and he definitely helped Chris just as much as Adam Sandler, David Spade and Phil Hartman did.”

Other particular care was chosen with regard to the soundtrack, in terms of handling what songs from Queen’s discography to use. “In a sense, it’s another compilation album,” May states. “And there definitely have been quite a few of those for us. But it also is a bit different in that regard. While a lot of hits are there, there’s also a few of the deep cuts, things that weren’t singles or videos, that were only played live up to a certain period of time.” The soundtrack features the full Live Aid set, marking the first official release of the legendary performance in audio form. There are also scattered live performances in the double-disc set, including a few never before released, such as the version of “Love of My Life” from Rock in Rio. Some of Freddie’s solo recordings are also represented, to show the full picture. And some songs have special “movie mixes”, combining studio and live versions together. Such is the case with “Liar”, a song from the first album, combining the studio master with a live performance at the Rainbow Theatre in 1974 (recently released to the public), and a special such mix for “We Will Rock You,” which starts out as the familiar studio version, then switches to a live recording.

There are also some new recordings May and Taylor have contributed to the soundtrack. The version of “Don’t Stop Me Now” has the original vocals, piano and bass, but some new, more powerful guitar and drum tracks, to make it more like how it has been performed live. “I’ve been quoted on record saying I don’t like the track in a lot of places,” May explains. “I actually do like it, but I always thought it represented Freddie’s separatism, about something we weren’t so privy to. Also, there’s not a lot of guitar in the track, so I really wanted to rip it up this time.” May and Taylor’s original band Smile, with bassist and vocalist Tim Staffell, is represented in the movie and soundtrack with their catchy single “Doing All Right,”…in a complete reunion re-recording. “We’ve always been good friends with Tim,” Taylor says, “and we’ve never begrudged each other the way things went down…even if we’ve always ribbed him about Humpy Bong. Anyways, we were talking about having ‘Doing All Right’ in the soundtrack, and Tim actually suggested we redo the song. It was loads of fun, and it made us remember the good times.” For the icing on the cake, May and Taylor did a version of the famous 20th Century Fox fanfare for the beginning of the movie.

In 1970 London, Zanzibar-born Farrokh Bulsara is looking for something new and exciting to his life. Suddenly, Smile, the band he has been following and associated with for some time, is on the verge of breaking up when bassist and vocalist Tim Staffell leaves. Not wanting guitarist Brian May and drummer Roger Taylor in the lurch, Farrokh offers himself as the new lead singer, especially when he shows the songs he has been writing on the side. Together with him and new bassist John Deacon, the band, soon renamed Queen, starts to build a reputation for itself gigging on the pub and university circuit. It is also at this point Farrokh changes his name to Freddie Mercury, a name more befitting a rock star, and also is entranced by the lovely Mary Austin, who seems to be his soul mate.

Seeking a leg into the business, the band signs an “ownership” deal with a group called Trident Productions, and also has the money to record their first album for EMI Records. While the first album seems to go nowhere, their next gets a bit of a leg up, thanks to songs like “Killer Queen” and “Seven Seas of Rhye.” Tours in America and Japan also get them much-needed experience and exposure. They also land a deal to take on John Reid as their manager as well as a new lawyer, Jim Beach, christened “Miami” Beach by Freddie. But all seems to be for naught as after three albums, the band has not achieved a breakthrough success, EMI is pressuring for a worthy enough followup to keep them on the label, and Trident is squeezing them for more money, the prohibitive cost of which may very well necessitate them breaking up. Backs against the wall, Queen retreat to Rockfield Farm in Wales, where, amidst ego-driven fights over writing credits and song placement, they record their landmark album _A Night at the Opera_ , with its centerpiece track, “Bohemian Rhapsody.” They know they have their hit, but EMI is not convinced and refuses to issue it as a single, citing its length. A “discreet” slipping of the song to a friendly DJ, Kenny Everett, changes opinion, and it soon becomes a #1 smash.

Buoyed by the success, Queen keeps on trucking worldwide, especially with an American record deal as well. The critics slam their records and dismiss them huffily, but the general public embraces them with open arms. The bigger they get, the bigger the changes that occur, as Freddie comes to an important realization about his sexuality, though he and Mary remain lifelong friends. Queen also loses John Reid, citing his other commitments, and “Miami” Beach steps up to take the reins. Year in and year out, Queen churns out anthem after anthem, tour after tour, hitting venues like Hyde Park, the Budokan, Madison Square Garden, the Montreal Forum, South American soccer stadiums and Milton Keynes, and their march continues unabated.

As a new decade dawns, it becomes a time of big changes. Brian, Roger and John have to deal with family issues of theirs, and Freddie takes to the nightlife of London, New York and Munich quite handily, with a cadre of different lovers at his side. Among them are struggling actress Barbara Valentin and his personal assistant Paul Prenter, who proves himself to be a negative influence on Freddie. Of course, not every band can stay together doing only group activity, and to creatively recharge, they all seek out a chance to expand with solo activities. Freddie, in particular is anxious to spread his wings and express himself with material not fitting Queen. While the band comes back together handily, their releases suddenly begin not to reach the same enraptured welcome as before, and they also court considerable backlash by their peers for agreeing to play the Sun City entertainment complex in South Africa during the height of apartheid. While attracting enough success on tour to even get the headlining slot at the inaugural Rock in Rio festival, Queen are definitely not on a hot streak, and are strongly considering packing it in. Then an offer to perform at Live Aid, a benefit concert to help famine victims in Ethiopia, is handed to them, and they accept. Their 20-minute set steals the show and gives them a badly needed shot in the arm.

Recharged by this, the band is inspired to record the soaring anthem “One Vision”, record a soundtrack album for the cult classic movie _Highlander_ , and launch their biggest tour yet, taking in the premiere European stadiums. Freddie also becomes interested in creating a collaboration album with renowned opera singer Montserrat Caballe, and finally finds true love and a stable relationship with Jim Hutton. Brian and Roger also find loving, lasting relationships of their own. All seems to be going their way once more.

But not everything is as it seems. Freddie soon learns that he is suffering from AIDS, and tells Jim and “Miami”, with promise they won’t tell anyone else. However, it becomes clear that he can’t hide the condition from the band or Mary, and so he tells them as well, and are willing to protectively circle around him ensure that the press, which has circled around Freddie like vultures for years, will not find out, though speculation does run rampant.

The members of Queen buckle down to work on new music, filled with new purpose like never before, especially after they decide to share writing credits from now on. The band also works hard to project the image that they could still go on tour but are choosing not to, thanks to their performance-styled music videos. They also receive a strong presence in North America like they haven’t had in years, after signing a deal with Hollywood Records, a new label founded by The Walt Disney Company and its CEO Michael Eisner. In time for their 20th anniversary, they release _Innuendo,_ a true return to regal glory. Knowing that time is not on his side, Freddie keeps on recording songs as basic scratch vocals on drum machines for the band to finish after he is gone. But soon his strength fails him and he lives his final days in home in peace. On November 23, 1991, Freddie allows the release of a statement to the press, admitting his condition…only to die 24 hours later.

Left to pick up the pieces, the surviving members memorialize Freddie with a special all-star concert at Wembley Stadium and finish off his final recordings for one final album, _Made In Heaven_ , as well as making one last song as a trio, “No One But You (Only the Good Die Young).” Brian and Roger continue to pay tribute to Freddie in various activities, including touring with the likes of Paul Rodgers and Adam Lambert, to this day.

The film will be released by 20th Century Fox and Regency Enterprises in the UK on October 24, 2018, and elsewhere on November 2. The soundtrack will be released on October 19 by Hollywood Records in North America, and Virgin EMI Records elsewhere. The album will be released in a standard two-disc form, and a deluxe version with an extra disc, a T-shirt, lithograph, hologram, three Queen-logo guitar picks, a 120-page book of liner notes, and bonus DVD/Blu-ray of video and concert footage by the real Queen.

CD 1

-20th Century Fox Fanfare *  
-Somebody to Love  
-Doing All Right (...Revisited) (Smile) *  
-Keep Yourself Alive (Rainbow Theatre '74)  
-Liar (Movie Mix) (Studio/Rainbow Theatre '74 hybrid)  
-Seven Seas of Rhye  
-Killer Queen  
-Stone Cold Crazy  
-Death on Two Legs  
-Bohemian Rhapsody  
-You're My Best Friend  
-Now I'm Here (Odeon '75)  
-We Will Rock You (Movie Mix)  
-Fat Bottomed Girls (Paris '78) **  
-Don't Stop Me Now (...Revisited) *  
-Crazy Little Thing Called Love  
-Another One Bites the Dust  
-Tie Your Mother Down (Sao Paulo '81) **  
-Under Pressure  
-I Want to Break Free

CD 2

-Love of My Life (Rio '85) **  
-Living On My Own (Freddie Solo)  
-Bohemian Rhapsody (Live Aid) **  
-Radio Ga Ga (Live Aid) **  
-Ay-Oh (Live Aid ) **  
-Hammer to Fall (Live Aid) **  
-Crazy Little Thing Called Love (Live Aid) **  
-We Will Rock You (Live Aid) **  
-We Are the Champions (Live Aid) **  
-One Vision  
-Who Wants to Live Forever  
-The Great Pretender (Freddie Solo)  
-Barcelona (Freddie Solo, with Montserrat Caballe; newly remixed version replacing synth orchestra and instruments with a live orchestra)  
-I Want It All  
-The Invisible Man (Remix; Early Version/Master Version hybrid)  
-Scandal  
-Innuendo  
-Headlong  
-I'm Going Slightly Mad  
-These Are the Days of Our Lives  
-The Show Must Go On  
-Mother Love  
-Let Me Live  
-No-One But You (Only the Good Die Young)

Bonus Disc

-Lazing On a Sunday Afternoon  
-I'm in Love with My Car  
-Doing All Right (Marc Martel vocal)  
-Love of My Life (Marc Martel vocal)  
-'39 (Queen + Paul Rodgers, Ukraine 2008)  
-Let Me in Your Heart Again  
-Love Kills (The Ballad)  
-Is This the World that We Created? (Live Aid) **  
-Mr. Bad Guy (Freddie Solo)  
-Time Waits For No One (Freddie Solo)  
-In My Defence (Freddie Solo)  
-Breakthru  
-The Miracle  
-Driven By You (Brian May Solo)  
-Somebody to Love (Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert '92, with George Michael)  
-Made In Heaven  
-Heaven for Everyone  
-Too Much Love Will Kill You  
-Bohemian Rhapsody (Queen + Adam Lambert, Summer Sonic in Japan 2014) **  
-We Are the Champions (Queen + Adam Lambert, Summer Sonic in Japan 2014) **

* New recording  
** Previously unreleased to the public

_All proceeds of the ticket sales, home video sales and soundtrack sales will benefit The Mercury Phoenix Trust, Nevermind…We’re Here To Help! and the Charlize Theron Africa Outreach Program._

* * *

"Lantern Entertainment Closes $289 Million Acquisition of Relativity Media's Assets," by Dawn C. Chimielewski, _Deadline Hollywood_ , July 16, 2018

Lantern Entertainment today completed its acquisition of Relativity Media's assets, representing a fresh start for an entertainment company formed in the rubble of Ryan Kavanaugh's struggle to run an indie distributor and production company.

A library of dozens of films, unreleased movies and a slate of scripted and unscripted television shows; as well as the library of Trigger Street Productions (the shingle formed by Kevin Spacey and Dana Brunetti, brought nearly to ruin by Spacey's disgrace until rescue funds by Springbok Productions and actor Willem Dafoe taking Spacey's place, and which was bought by Relativity in 2016) constitute the foundation of the newly formed studio with the ambitious stated goal of being “one of the preeminent homes for talent.”

“Over the last several months, we have immersed ourselves in the formation of Lantern Entertainment,” Co-presidents Andy Mitchell and Milos Brajovic said in a statement. “Throughout all our conversations with employees, creatives and industry professionals, we're inspired by the collective commitment and support extended to the launch of our new company.”

This company was formed by Mitchell, Brajovic, and Spyglass Entertainment (and former MGM) heads Roger Birnbaum and Gary Barber, with the intent to use Relativity's assets to merge with Spyglass Entertainment's output to make a library, and then use it as the basis for new productions. The $289 million acquisition marks the final chapter of Relativity Media, which went under two months ago with more than $500 million in debts. The bankruptcy court officially abrogated the debt as part of the plan, once Lantern announced that it intended to merge with Spyglass Entertainment's library and start anew.

An industry newcomer, Lantern Entertainment is guided by industry veterans Steve Beeks, Alexa Platt and Lauren Zalaznik, who will serve as advisors, guiding the company’s future. Furthermore, Trigger Street Productions is not harmed by the Relativity folding and will continue to operate, both with Lantern Entertainment and in deals with other producers and studios.

* * *

"Legendary, Warner Bros. Near Distribution Deal," by Brett Lang, _Variety_ , August 18, 2018  
  
Legendary Entertainment will likely leave its distribution and co-financing pact with Universal Studios early, according to multiple insiders. The company behind _Godzilla_ and _Kong: Skull Island_ is decamping for Warner Bros., its former home. A deal has yet to be signed, but the two entertainment players are in exclusive negotiations and are expected to come to an agreement shortly.  
  
However, the deal will be much different than previous pacts that Legendary has signed, signaling a larger strategic shift that’s taken place at the company following a series of box office flops and the departure of its founder Thomas Tull in 2017. Namely, the Warner Bros. alliance will be a straight output deal, meaning that the studio will release Legendary’s films for a fee. It will not be a slate financing partnership, which was the kind of alliance that Legendary had at Warner Bros. during an eight-year relationship that ended in 2013. Warner Bros. could invest in certain Legendary films and vice versa, but neither company is be obligated to take equity stakes in each other’s films.  
  
Legendary was previously motivated to leave Warner Bros. in part because of bad blood between Tull and former studio chief Jeff Robinov. But both companies have new leadership — Toby Emmerich has taken the reins at Warners and Josh Grode, a former entertainment lawyer, has been in charge at Legendary since early this year. The two men have been hammering out a new deal in recent weeks. The company’s decision to move _Detective Pikachu_ , its Pokemon adaptation, to Warner Bros. from Universal was widely reported to be a signal it was eyeing the exit door. Legendary no longer has any movies set up at Universal. It had originally been linked to the Dwayne Johnson and Gal Gadot action-thriller _Red Notice_ , but it will no longer back that picture. The company’s deal with Legendary was originally slated to end in December. Legendary does not have rights to future installments in ongoing franchises such as _Jurassic World_ that it previously invested in when its deal was in place at Universal.  
  
When Legendary migrated to Universal, it did so with grand ambitions. The companies announced that as part of the deal Legendary’s franchises and intellectual property could be turned into rides at Universal’s theme parks. In return, Universal said it viewed the deal as a chance to collaborate with Legendary on projects in China. Legendary is owned by Chinese conglomerate Dalian Wanda and has long had a presence in the Middle Kingdom through Legendary East, a joint venture film production company based in Hong Kong. The alliance didn’t pay off. Universal came to believe that it would have been better off if it had financed films such as _Jurassic World_ without Legendary, because the studio was forced to share the profits on movies that were wildly successful and arrived without a lot of risk attached to them. In turn, many of the films that Legendary produced, such as this summer’s _Skyscraper_ and _Crimson Peak_ , turned out to be box office misses. _Kong: Skull Island_ , a hit for Legendary, was released by Warner Bros.  
  
Warner Bros. and Legendary reunited at this year’s Comic-Con to show footage from _Godzilla: King of the Monsters_ , the latest entry in the soon-to-be partners’ monster franchise. In June, Legendary announced it has closed a $1 billion senior secured revolving credit facility led by JPMorganChase.  
  
Spokespeople for Warner Bros., Universal, and Legendary declined to comment.

* * *

"Comcast Buys Over 30% of Sky on Open Market, Seeks More Before Takeover Deadline," by Stewart Clarke, _Variety_ , September 25, 2018  
  
Comcast said Tuesday it had snapped up more than 30% of the shares in Sky, the European pay-TV service that it is in the process of buying. The U.S. cable giant, which owns 35% of the NBCUniversal conglomerate and fully owns DreamWorks Animation, has a Sky-endorsed offer for the company on the table, but it can also openly buy Sky shares, except from shareholders in the U.S. The company said it is “seeking to make further market purchases” of shares in Sky.  
  
Comcast beat rival 21st Century Fox, or to be more precise the soon-to-be-spun-off Fox Corporation (after Disney's purchase of certain assets of 21st Century Fox goes through in December) on Saturday in a high-stakes auction of Sky, lodging a winning bid of £17.28 per share, which values the business at $40 billion. Sky shareholders have until Oct. 11 to accept the offer. At midday Tuesday, Sky was trading at £17.27 on the London stock exchange.  
  
Although Comcast executives celebrated their near-certain victory over Fox Corporation in the battle for Sky – CEO Brian Roberts called it “a great day for Comcast” – the market has not shared their enthusiasm. Comcast’s stock took a hammering, and 21st Century Fox and Disney were up in trading Monday.  
  
Comcast is obliged by UK rules to offer to buy out the remaining Sky shareholders, including the 39% Fox already owns. Fox has said it is “considering its options” and has not officially pulled out of the Sky race, although its latest £15.67-per-share offer in Saturday’s auction is considerably short of Comcast’s. Sky's assets, including Sky News, Sky Sports and Sky Cinema, are expected to be a potent weapon in Comcast's arsenal.

* * *

"Rupert Murdoch's Sky Reign to End as Fox Sells All Shares to Comcast," by Jim Waterson, _The Guardian_ , September 26, 2018  
  
Rupert Murdoch’s three-decade reign at Sky TV is to end after his company 21st Century Fox announced it would sell all of its shares in the British broadcaster to the US media firm Comcast.  
  
The two companies had been locked in a bidding war for the satellite TV and broadband business, which culminated when Comcast tabled a knockout bid valuing the company at £30 billion in a high-stakes auction on Saturday night.  
  
Despite this there were suggestions that Fox could still choose to retain its minority stake in Sky, possibly to frustrate Comcast’s efforts. But on Wednesday the company announced it would instead cash in its shares and take about £12 billion from Comcast for its 39% stake in the company.  
  
Comcast’s victory also means that almost two years of government scrutiny of whether Murdoch should be allowed to take control of Sky were ultimately for nothing – although the lengthy process did give Comcast enough time to move in and gazump the Fox bid.  
  
“When we launched Sky in 1989 it was four channels produced from a prefab structure in an industrial park on the fringes of west London,” said 21st Century Fox in a statement announcing its decision to sell their shares. “We bet – and almost lost – the farm on launching a business that many didn’t think was such a good idea. Today, Sky is Europe’s leading entertainment company and a world-class example of a customer-driven enterprise.  
  
“This achievement would not have been possible without decades of entrepreneurial risk-taking and the commitment of thousands of colleagues, creators and dreamers. For nearly 30 years we have invested to create a dynamic and exciting business that has produced excellent returns for shareholders and has become one of the most admired companies in Europe.”  
  
Although Murdoch is still currently in control of Fox, he has already agreed to sell most of its TV and film assets to Disney. In reality it is Disney, rather than Murdoch, that will receive the substantial proceeds from the sale of shares, even though the ownership stake in Sky was planned to be spun off and not be covered in the acquisition deal anyways. But Murdoch announced a slight amendment of the deal for Disney to pocket the proceeds of this sale.  
  
The money could be a boost to Disney, given that the acquisition of the Fox assets at over $52 billion might seem like overpaying to some people, and having something to hedge the bets on might be a nice fallback.  
  
Murdoch’s departure from Sky marks the end of an era for the British media industry, although the 87-year-old media mogul will retain substantial influence thanks to his newspaper holdings and recent push into the British radio industry. Sky News will now be owned by Comcast, which already controls a substantial stake in US news and media businesses including 35% of NBC and Universal Studios.  
  
Although there has been no formal announcement on his future, the current Sky chairman, James Murdoch, is likely to leave the company when the deal is finalized. Almost half of the current Sky staff also take part in the company’s share investment scheme, meaning they are looking forward to a financial windfall.  
  
“Nearly 30 years ago Rupert Murdoch took a risk to launch Sky and in the process changed the way we watch television forever,” said Jeremy Darroch, the Sky chief executive, who is on track to earn about £50 million as a result of the sale.  
  
“His vision and belief has enabled us to grow into Europe’s leading direct-to-consumer media business and I would like to personally thank him, James, and 21st Century Fox for their consistent support as shareholders, board members and friends.”

* * *

"Comcast Closes Deal for Fox’s Sky Stake, Owns Over 75% of European Pay-TV Giant," by Stewart Clarke, _Variety_ , October 9, 2018  
  
Comcast said Tuesday that it now owns more than 75% of Sky having acquired shares and closed a deal for Fox’s 39.1% stake in the pay-TV giant. The process of delisting Sky from the London Stock Exchange will now get underway and is set to be completed by Nov. 7, by which point Comcast will own the entirety of Sky. James Murdoch is among those who have resigned from the board in the wake of Fox selling its stake.  
  
“We are pleased today to be the majority owner of Sky,” Comcast chairman and CEO Brian Roberts said in a statement. “Led by Jeremy Darroch and his superb team – now together with Comcast – our combined global leadership in technology and content paves the way for us to accelerate investment and growth in Sky’s brand and premier platforms.”  
  
In the same week that UK culture secretary Jeremy Wright underlined his expectations regarding the Sky News channel after the change of ownership – “I’ve left them in no doubt at all about the importance of editorial independence and Sky News,” he said – Roberts addressed the issue.  
  
Comcast said the independent Sky board, including CEO Jeremy Darroch, have sold their shares in the company to its new owner, which currently holds 76.84% of Sky stock. Its £17.28 per share offer remains open and will do so until Comcast gives 14 days’ notice to the contrary.  
  
“Comcast have committed to investment in Sky, including our Osterley and European headquarters and we very much look forward to working with Brian and the Comcast team to achieve further growth and development of Sky’s business,” Darroch said in a statement.  
  
He also spoke about Sky’s news network. “Separately, Sky News will benefit greatly from Comcast’s funding commitments over the coming years and the arrangements that will be put in place to preserve and enhance its editorial independence,” he said.  
  
With Fox offloading its stake, James Murdoch, a former Sky CEO, has resigned from the board of Sky. Chase Carey has also left the board, as have Martin Gilbert, Andy Sukawaty, Tracy Clarke, and Katrin Wehr-Seiter. Sky said that Matthieu Pigasse and Adine Grate have agreed to remain on the board for the time being. James Conyers, Sky’s group general counsel, has joined the board.  
  
Comcast prevailed in the twist-laden battle for control for Sky with a bumper $39 billion bid. It beat Fox in a dramatic blind auction for Sky, which has major operations in the UK and Ireland, Austria and Germany, and Italy. It has also launched streaming services in Switzerland and Spain.

* * *

"The Walt Disney Company Announces Additions to its Studio Management Team, Conditional Upon Closing of 21st Century Fox Acquisition," BusinessWire, October 18, 2018  
  
 _Emma Watts to serve as Vice Chairman, Twentieth Century Fox Film and President, Production, Twentieth Century Fox  
  
Nancy Utley and Stephen Gilula to serve as Chairmen, Fox Searchlight Pictures  
  
Elizabeth Gabler to serve as President of Production, Fox 2000  
  
Andrea Miloro and Robert Baird to serve as Co-Presidents, Fox Animation  
  
Vanessa Morrison to serve as President, Fox Family_  
  
BURBANK, CA-The Walt Disney Company (NYSE: DIS) announced that several senior film executives of Twenty-First Century Fox, Inc. (“21st Century Fox” —NASDAQ: FOXA, FOX) are joining Disney’s Studio Entertainment management team, conditional upon closing of Disney’s pending acquisition of 21st Century Fox.  
  
“We’re pleased that these talented executives will be joining our incredible team of studio leaders once the acquisition of 21st Century Fox is completed this December,” said Robert A. Iger, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, The Walt Disney Company. “Under Meryl Poster’s leadership, Disney, Pixar, Marvel and Lucasfilm have reached unprecedented levels of creative and box-office success, and adding Fox’s impressive film brands and franchises to our studio will allow us to create even more appealing high-quality entertainment to delight audiences.”  
  
“The addition of these respected film groups under the umbrella of The Walt Disney Studios will create endless possibilities as we continue to deliver first-rate motion pictures to audiences around the world,” said Ms. Poster, Chairman, The Walt Disney Studios. “This is an experienced group of executives, and Dick Cook and I look forward to welcoming them to our leadership ranks upon completion of the acquisition.”  
  
Reporting directly to Ms. Poster will be:

  * Emma Watts, Vice Chairman, 20th Century Fox Film and President, Production, Twentieth Century Fox
  * Nancy Utley and Stephen Gilula, Chairmen, Fox Searchlight Pictures
  * Elizabeth Gabler, President of Production, Fox 2000



Reporting to Ms. Poster and Ms. Watts will be:

  * Andrea Miloro and Robert Baird, Co-Presidents, Fox Animation (includes Blue Sky Animation)
  * Vanessa Morrison, President, Fox Family



The executives will join Ms. Poster's existing leadership team that includes:

  * Dick Cook, President and Co-Chairman, The Walt Disney Studios
  * Sean Bailey, President, Walt Disney Studios Motion Picture Production
  * Ed Catmull, Co-President, Pixar and Walt Disney Animation Studios
  * John Lasseter, Co-President, Pixar, and Walt Disney Animation Studios, co-Chief Creative Officer, Walt Disney Animation Studios
  * Jennifer Lee, Chief Creative Officer, Walt Disney Animation Studios
  * Pete Docter, Chief Creative Officer, Pixar Animation Studios
  * Kevin Feige, President, Marvel Studios
  * Louis D’Esposito, Co-President, Marvel Studios
  * Kathleen Kennedy, President, Lucasfilm
  * Ken Bunt, President, Disney Music Group
  * Thomas Schumacher, President & Producer, Disney Theatrical Group



Disney’s acquisition of 21st Century Fox has received formal approval from shareholders of both companies, and Disney and 21st Century Fox have entered into a consent decree with the U.S. Department of Justice that allows the acquisition to proceed, while requiring the sale of the Fox Sports Regional Networks, as well as the sale of the 50 percent stake of Endemol Shine Group to the spun-off Fox Corporation. The transaction is subject to a number of non-U.S. merger and other regulatory reviews.  
  
About The Walt Disney Company  
The Walt Disney Company, together with its subsidiaries, is a diversified worldwide entertainment company with operations in four business segments: Media Networks; Studio Entertainment; Parks, Experiences and Consumer Products; and Direct-to-Consumer and International. Disney is a Dow 30 company and had annual revenues of $55.1 billion in its Fiscal Year 2017.

* * *

"2019 A Litmus Test Year for Fox Under Disney," _The Hollywood Reporter_ , December 25, 2018  
  
And so it is done. The Walt Disney Company officially took ownership of the film and television divisions of 20th Century Fox, Fox Searchlight Pictures, Fox 2000 Pictures, Blue Sky Animation, FX Networks and National Geographic Partners as of December 14. Disney now officially owns 39 percent of the total prospective global box office, the largest share out of any studio, as well as thousands of movies and franchises spanning all the way back to William Fox founding the original company back in 1915. For those who like to bemoan how big Disney has gotten since the Michael Eisner era, this certainly provides plenty of ammunition to this particular crowd, and their futile arguments for it to be divested the way Ma Bell was back in the '80s (though that was ultimately in vain, as the original AT&T has essentially rebuilt itself all over again).  
  
Now, the new year will see how well Fox can adjust itself to being a division of Disney, especially with it now having an exceptionally aggressive release schedule of dozens of films a year, more films than have ever been released at a time, even during the heady days of the Miramax era. First off, there naturally has to be some shrinkage with the adjustments. Disney announced that at least 3000 employees would be laid off, though these tend to be largely lower-tier people, with little effect on the marketing, budgetary, production and executive divisions. In addition, dozens of prospective projects in pre-production have been cancelled or sold off to different studios. Among these are an adaptation of the comic series _Mouse Guard;_ book adaptation _On The Come Up_ (from the author of the book and successful film _The Hate U Give_ ); the Paul Greengrass-Tom Hanks team up _News of the World,_ which is the director's first film in a while done outside of Springbok Productions and revolves around a Civil War captain reading the news to small towns in a precursor to modern newscasters (this project has been picked up by Universal); Blue Sky-slated film _Foster_ ; plans to continue the _Die Hard_ franchise (considered by many to be virtually run down into irrelevance, especially with the most recent film, 2013's _A Good Day to Die Hard_ ); and an untold number of X-Men and Fantastic Four projects, including films about Doctor Doom, Kitty Pryde, and most notably, the long-gestating _Gambit_ , which Channing Tatum was attached to. The latter cases are clearly done with an intent to reboot these properties under the MCU at a future date, especially because the Fox _X-Men_ franchise would not make quite an easy fit to retroactively slide into the MCU, because it would raise a number of plot holes about where exactly the mutants were during events like Loki invading New York or Thanos' plan to "balance the universe."  
  
But there are still many projects coming down the pike, especially including releases to theaters throughout 2019. The first such notable film is the long-in-the-works _Alita: Battle Angel_ , by Springbok's Enima Studios, James Cameron and Robert Rodriguez, slated for Valentine's Day. The adaptation of the popular manga had been a passion project for Cameron since the year 2000, but the work on _Avatar_ and the forthcoming sequels ultimately took priority for him. Expectations for the film's performance are quite low, but a surprise may very well be in store. Other notable "big" film releases for the year include _Dark Phoenix_ , the followup to _X-Men: Apocalypse_ / _X-Men: Days of Future Past_ , which will effectively mark the end of the Fox era for the X-Men and be released on June 7 (though the planned horror-themed spinoff _The New Mutants_ is still scheduled for theatrical release in 2020); James Gray's sci-fi flick _Ad Astra_ , starring Brad Pitt, Tommy Lee Jones and Donald Sutherland and slated for September 20; James Mangold's _Ford v Ferrari_ , starring Matt Damon and Christian Bale and slated for November 15; and Clint Eastwood's _Richard Jewell_ , a co-production with Disney's Touchstone Pictures division and Springbok, slated for December 13. Fox/Disney will also handle the international distribution of _Terminator: Dark Fate_ , the restart of the franchise after a decade, which will see the return of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Linda Hamilton to their iconic roles and James Cameron in the producer's chair, along with the help of Springbok, which will release worldwide on November 1. (Paramount will handle North American distribution.)  
  
20th Century Fox, Fox Searchlight (marking its 25th anniversary), Fox 2000 and Blue Sky Animation will also see a number of other releases throughout 2019, including faith-based drama _Breakthrough_ , biopic _Tolkien_ , buddy comedy _Stuber_ , the Reese Witherspoon-produced drama _Lucy in the Sky_ starring Natalie Portman, indie horror _Ready or Not_ , Taika Waititi's off-the-wall "anti-hate satire" _Jojo Rabbit_ (involving a young boy in Nazi Germany who cavorts with his imaginary friend, a representation of Hitler), "'talking' dog picture" _The Art of Racing in the Rain_ , and animated action movie _Spies in Disguise_ starring Will Smith and Tom Holland. Naturally, some films will be more successful than others, and it'll remain to be seen which ones will be hits and which ones will be flops. But with Disney having taken pains to smoothly integrate Fox's marketing team with their own and having shared lots of meetings and points to discuss it, as well as the trend of studios in general taking great pains to advertise films and pressure exhibitors even if the film has a dreadful opening weekend to try and boost its fortunes, things could certainly look fruitful for the division.  
  
Furthermore, Fox will have plenty of work in 2020 and beyond, between offerings like _New Mutants_ , book adaptation _The Woman in the Window_ , Shawn Levy's Ryan Reynolds-helmed comedy _Free Guy_ , Springbok and Steven Spielberg's remake of _West Side Story_ , the in-progress _Avatar_ sequels, and a continued place for _Deadpool_ films (as Disney has announced this is the only character who will not be fully-integrated in the MCU, to keep his R-rated integrity intact). In addition, Disney has confirmed that franchises like _Planet of the Apes_ , _Kingsman_ , and _Alien_ will continue _;_ as well as pushing through a sequel to _The Simpsons Movie_ and a feature film for _Bob's Burgers_.

* * *

"Killer App: How Blockbuster Video Evolved In the 21st century", _Variety_ , January 23, 2019  
  
It seems so easy to take for granted at this point, but it wasn't always the case when we as a populace had so much range and choice in how to watch movies and TV shows, and certainly didn't have the freedom to watch absolutely anything we wanted, whenever we wanted. Much of this can easily traced to one company's urge to take advantage of the "information superhighway" and everything that it could potentially represent. Blockbuster Video, long the kings of movie rentals, made the prescient decision in the late '90s to follow this path, and redefine what the moviewatching experience could be, as well as how movies and TV series reached audiences.  
  
The two figures responsible for this paradigm shift are Blockbuster's longtime CEO John Antioco and Blockbuster Entertainment (the digital division) head Reed Hastings. Hastings had been interested in creating his own mail-order DVD business, in order to create a new type of rental experience to replace the longstanding annoyances of late fees and failure to rewind fees, as well as expand the time people could keep and use their rented movies without penalty. Antioco, looking to the future and seeing how their position in the home video business wouldn't always be secure without major change, heard what Hastings was trying to do, and ended up buying his potential company and brought him into the Blockbuster fold in 1997. Both of them laid out a grand vision in which, one day, the brick and mortar retail store would no longer be the biggest component of Blockbuster's business strategy, but also now feature renting movies through the mail for as long as people wanted, renting movies from vending machines located in places like supermarkets and gas station food marts, and most importantly, an expansive video-on-demand service, using the Internet to bring streaming video into computers, TVs, and video game consoles. Understandably, some old timers at Blockbuster were leery of this strategy, mainly because of the expenses that would be incurred laying the foundation for it, as well as the fact that it would take years, maybe even a decade, before it would actually be considered profitable. But Hastings in particular assured them that it would be worth the effort, and that it would ensure Blockbuster's viability in the future.  
  
With the strategy officially adopted and underway, Blockbuster set a target for it all to reach critical mass and profitability by 2008, and make up for the losses here by liberalizing, even eventually ending, late fees and other such hassles in the retail stores, which helped drive traffic to the stores by larger numbers. News of what Blockbuster was doing also brought forth an unexpected visitor. Enron, the Houston-based energy giant, later to become infamous for accounting fraud and 21st century corporate crime, had been creating a broadband-based division for trading bandwidth capacity and rolling out streaming video, and made an offer to Blockbuster to enter into a joint venture with them regarding VOD. Hastings and Antioco sniffed at the offer, because such a deal with Enron would cut into their potential profits, and they also derided them as neophytes wet behind the ears with no experience in this field and were just looking for any excuse to take advantage of the dot-com and telecom bubble. (Enron did manage to secure a joint venture with Hollywood Video set to last as a 20-year exclusive deal, but it went badly awry, with Enron blaming the chain for the failure, even though the evidence showed otherwise.) Blockbuster was left to keep on plugging at their plans.  
  
As the rollout progressed, customers were soon lining up for the new branches of Blockbuster's business. The mail-order and vending machine businesses did extremely well, then when the streaming services were perfected, any device with Internet access could be plugged into an unparalleled library in which absolutely every film and TV series (that wasn't lost or destroyed) could be viewed for the subscription price of $15 a month or $60 a year. It also helped that Blockbuster had been able to take advantage of its longstanding ties with the studios and secure them all into noncompete-clause contracts, in which they were not allowed to break off and form their own streaming services.  
  
Then, in the following decade, Blockbuster took it to the next level, by making deals with all the studios and production companies in similar noncompete projects to make original programming that could only be viewed on the streaming service. Under the aegis of content officer Ted Sarandos, TV production head Cindy Holland, and movie production head Scott Stuber, they all proceeded to roll out with an impressive slate of original content. The first salvo in all this was _House of Cards_ , from David Fincher and Trigger Street Productions and starring Christian Bale. The political thriller entranced audiences, and gave birth to what became known as "binge watching," especially when all episodes in a season would be released on the exact same day. Many notable series followed, such as _Orange Is the New Black, Stranger Things, BoJack Horseman, Mindhunter, The Crown, Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, Iron Fist, Big Mouth, F is for Family, Harlots, PEN15, Transparent, The Mandalorian,_ and so on. The service also became noted for original films such as _Marriage Story, Roma, Dolemite Is My Name, The Dirt, Stargirl, The Polka King, The Perfection, The Two Popes, The Irishman_ and _Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile._ If anything, it also became noted as a great place for midbudget and art house films to receive a wider audience.  
  
Hastings has said that regardless of whether or not Blockbuster would have accepted his work, he was going to pursue his strategy and made his own company, especially because it would've succeeded no matter what. Of course, it would be a very different landscape, with Blockbuster moving to irrelevance, Hastings' company as its own, and potential competition all around trying to catch up with him.

* * *

“It’s Good to be the King: Inside the Court of Nirvana and Kurt Cobain”, by David Fricke, _Rolling Stone_ , February 1, 2019  
  
I have interviewed Kurt Cobain five times over the decades prior to this current session, two of those times with his bandmates. One would think that means that I know exactly what to expect from the Nirvana frontman turned entertainment mogul, but in fact, he always surprises me each time I see him after a period of intervening years. There is always something new, about his field, and the world at large, when I sit and talk with him.  
  
When I first sat with him in the fall of 1993, Nirvana was in the midst of touring _In Utero_ , playing general admission venues of an average capacity of 5000, working to confirm that their mainstream success with _Nevermind_ was no mere fluke. Cobain was 26 years old, still married to Courtney Love, still grappling with feuds with Pearl Jam and Guns N’ Roses, and while being an adoring father to his eldest child, daughter Frances Bean Cobain, there was also always a coterie of nannies to step in, as they didn’t particularly trust him or Love to take on most of the day-to-day responsibility. Nirvana was signed to DGC Records, a relatively small hard rock imprint of Geffen Records, and David Geffen himself, along with Miramax co-founder Harvey Weinstein, were the undisputed kingmakers, having amassed considerable power and respect. The Internet was in its infancy, Michael Eisner was in the middle of pulling Disney out of a dark age, and it was at the point people were just starting to always have a VCR in their house.  
  
Fast forward to today, and it’s a very different world. Geffen and Weinstein are gone and long discredited, Cobain divorced Love and is happily married to actress Charlize Theron, with a fairly expansive family, whom they have long been hands-on and direct in rearing. Their production company, Springbok Productions, has emerged to fill the void that Geffen and Weinstein left behind, with untold billions from their sudden dominance in film, television, digital media, animation, video games and musical theater. And Nirvana, as well as Cobain himself, have basically cemented themselves as the most credible challengers to the legacy of The Beatles, selling out tens of thousands of tickets everywhere they play, and Cobain is now seen as a pioneer who has completely disrupted the entire world.  
  
And yet, as I sit to talk to him, Krist Novoselic, Dave Grohl, Pat Smear and Taylor Hawkins at Springbok’s L.A. offices, surrounded with pictures of their many, _many_ friends over the decades, and an enshrined photo of Mel Brooks with the quote “It’s good to be the king,” from _History of the World-Part I_ , embossed in gold, the 52-year-old Cobain is still very much the same man I talked to in a Chicago hotel the first time around. “I’ve never been very ostentatious with all the money I’ve earned, enough to last several lifetimes. The houses I own are fairly simple and spartan, in terms of wealth, I don’t like to go to fancy restaurants that often because I don’t like the scene even though I’m part of it, I could easily just live off of eating nothing but ramen and Kraft macaroni and cheese. I’m also not a business-minded guy. I don’t run Springbok, nor does Charlize. It basically runs itself, with all the people we’ve hired. I can still barely fill out my tax forms.”  
  
It would be easy to dismiss these comments as disingenuous, as Cobain wanting to downplay himself for effect, were it not for the fact that everyone who knows him and his family on a day to day basis have all vouched for it. “Kurt is still very much a luddite when it comes to the deeper nuances of the industry,” Jennifer Todd, co-founder and CEO of Springbok, chimes in. “He knows enough to stay informed of new developments, but not enough to actually administrate. Charlize is better in that regard, but she’s also not quite there. If she were in charge of things, Springbok may not have crashed and burned, but it might never have grown beyond a standard vanity shingle. That’s not a knock on either of them, as they’re both immensely talented and compassionate, just stating the facts.”  
  
At this moment, Nirvana is about to go out and promote their new album, a concept piece entitled _Artificial Tension_ , mark the 30th anniversary of their debut album _Bleach_ with a limited edition vinyl-only release of the 20th anniversary box set for Record Store Day, and mark the 20th anniversary of Springbok’s founding. The band, along with Theron, are also being named Disney Legends this year. The five members of the band clearly wanted to take stock of it all, and show that even now, at the height of their fame and influence, they still feel they have something to prove.  
  
Q: By all rights, you’ve essentially accomplished everything you possibly could. You were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame five years ago, and you and Springbok are being named Disney Legends this year. That’s the type of position where many would feel that’s it and pack it all in.  
KC: If anything, we’ve got a lot of mileage left in us. If we weren’t at the age of musicians keeping on making music and touring well into their 80s or 90s, then we probably would feel that way and say it’s the time to stop. But I feel that if anything, we’re still only in the middle of our career, not the end. The idea that rock and roll has a retirement age is pretty ridiculous.  
DG: When you break it down, the really great acts are those that continue for decades, that weather every storm to keep on turning out new art, even if they’re not always in the most favorable of circumstances. I always get a thrill of entertaining crowds no matter where we are. For two, three hours on that stage, everything is right in the world and we can escape from our hassles.  
Q: What would you say has really changed in terms of how Nirvana operates since the early days?  
KN: Other than being bigger and working on concept albums? Nothing really. Kurt is still the one who comes up with the songs, we work our asses off to really get the sounds down, and each time we do is a big risk. We don’t go out with the album thinking, “we’ve got it made, this is another easy day for us.” No, we’re always thinking that somehow, we’ve reached the album that will turn everyone off and people will hate. Each one is a risk for us.  
Q: Are Pat and Taylor full members of the band?  
KC: Absolutely. I love having someone to work off with, as well as ensuring we’re louder for bigger places, especially when Taylor takes the drums and Dave comes out on guitar and sings.  
PS: I’ve always been really good friends with them since the _In Utero_ days, and I’ve always felt like part of the band. That was a real trial by fire for me, and it really prepared us for what was to come afterwards. I really feel that.  
TH: I may seem to have the easiest time of everyone, since I only have to play a portion of the shows, but I put my all into it every night. I’ve even done some nights playing drums on a lot of the songs Dave normally does that for, to really build my chops. It’s been quite an experience for me, and I’m grateful.  
Q: Did you really think you’d be as influential as you’ve become?  
KC: Not at all. I certainly didn’t expect that we’d grow to what we are now, and I certainly didn’t think we’d be considered the heirs to The Beatles at all. In my heart, no one can ever be that, and I’ll always feel that way even if the rest of the world says otherwise. Simply put, I never thought the band would be in this position, and I never once imagined myself as an entertainment industry executive. Springbok was not a reality to me, even after it was founded 20 years ago.  
Q: Springbok is considered the greatest success story of the 21st century. What do you think is responsible for that?  
KC: Finding the right people to work with, to control things, freeing you from being a company director. It’s basically the opposite of when The Beatles launched Apple Corps, which really is the precedent for Springbok. Apple was intended to become everything and anything in the entertainment industry, but it didn’t have a leader. John, Paul, George and Ringo were incredibly naïve about how a business could be run, lots of people were hired and paid to do nothing, and lots of people took advantage of the breaking in new acts that was intended by taking the advance money and running. Then you add the whole Allen Klein situation, someone who didn’t care for the integrity of The Beatles or Apple, who even personally was responsible for George’s plagiarism lawsuit for “My Sweet Lord,” because he also represented the other act. Apple was then only able to succeed as a brand, much as The Beatles have stayed on as a brand.  
DG: I certainly could never have come up with an idea for something like Springbok, and I never would’ve tried. I just don’t care at all about business, I want to get out and play. I speak for myself and the other guys, that only Kurt could’ve made that leap.  
KN: At least it hasn’t turned him into another suit, that’s the best part. You gotta respect Kurt’s integrity.  
Q: Among the projects Springbok has in the pipeline is Clint Eastwood’s film _Richard Jewell_. Nirvana was performing at Centennial Olympic Park that night.  
KC: I still have nightmares about it. We were just having a great time onstage, performing for the MTV cameras, which was a real historic part of Olympics coverage. The audience was definitely enjoying themselves, and it felt real magical. Then we could see that people were starting to move back, wondering what that meant.  
KN: I was in the middle of telling a joke to the audience when the bomb went off. MTV even captured it in their broadcast, it was chilling. The panic started to set in, especially when we saw it came from a sound and lighting tower, and Dave immediately shouted out for people to stay away from it, that the tower was going to collapse.  
DG: Thankfully it didn’t, because someone had nudged that backpack a few inches. If that hadn’t happened, regardless of what Mr. Jewell had done, a lot more people would’ve died with that tower coming down.  
Q: Is it true that you’re going to appear in the film as yourselves to reenact the performance?  
KC: Yes, because that’s part of what drew us to the script, a chance to sort of exorcise some demons, that and the fact Mr. Jewell’s story needed to be told, and I wanted to ensure it was told respectfully.  
Q: I imagine that it was a bit of a titanic struggle, between you and Clint Eastwood.  
KC: It had to be done, because Clint intended something very different. He was going to really tear into his political biases to basically say that the “dirty liberal media and Democrat-stooge FBI” were purposefully in cahoots to railroad Jewell, that Bill Clinton was pushing the thumb on the scale for it, and that the reporter at the _Atlanta Journal-Constitution_ that broke the initial story was just a bitch on wheels who slept for sources and was personally driven to take Jewell out and make a name for herself. It was just beyond the pale, and I went right up to Clint and told him that he couldn’t do this, that it would be slander against a woman who was merely doing her job, and he would be doing Richard Jewell’s memory a disservice. Now he didn’t like that, and he definitely laid into me, into Springbok as a whole, in that way of his, saying he was going to pull the film away from us, from Disney, and get Warners to make it, since that’s where all his movies end up.  
Q: How did you manage to come out on top?  
KC: Jennifer’s really the unsung hero, she really went to the bat, and told the scriptwriter, Billy Ray, to try again and rework the material. She’s very blunt, and he basically made it clear that Clint’s reputation wouldn’t simply push into silence. She especially was going to go to the press and denounce the film quite viciously if he was going to pursue this path, and that we’d personally make it our mission to sink it. I think part of the reason he’s so hit and miss these days is because no one questions him, because they’re too in awe of his legend, whereas we dealt with him like a human being, took him down a notch. I’m glad we took on the project, because if we didn’t, he would’ve pulled out his blatant character assassination and smeared a reputable organization just to push his own agenda.  
Q: Obviously, there are people who feel that you, Nirvana and Springbok have gotten too big, and that you’re ruining everything about our culture, that you’re overrated and need to simply die.  
KC: Are their first names Matt and Trey? ( _Chuckles_ ) No, in all seriousness, no matter who you are, not everyone will like you, and you’ve just got to roll with that. If you spend your time worrying about that and trying to win them over, then you become everything they accuse you of. Paul Stanley’s told me that time and time again. How do you think KISS is what it is, despite having legions of detractors or grizzled ex-fans who like to dogpile on them all the time? Because they simply don’t give a shit about complainers and know they’re a minority, when the real fans are the ones who show up every night.  
DG: It’s a bit of jealousy too. They’ll never admit that, but it’s obvious.  
PS: I read somewhere that during the French Revolution, a lot of them were actually envious of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette and the ruling class and wanted to be them, that they were just frustrated people who took their anger out to that extreme to compensate. It’s a very compelling theory.  
TH: Meanwhile, we’re still rolling along, and this train ain’t stopping anytime soon.  
Q: What do you think the future holds, especially in the next decade?  
KC: I don’t have a fucking clue. I never have. That’s part of what makes the future exciting, not knowing what’s to come. If you do know, it’s pretty boring.

* * *

"Annapurna And MGM Expand U.S. Theatrical Film Distribution Partnership Under Iconic United Artists Banner", BusinessWire, February 5, 2019 **  
  
**LOS ANGELES — Metro Goldwyn Mayer (MGM) and Annapurna Pictures (Annapurna) today announced plans to expand their collaboration under the companies’ existing joint venture, which will be branded as United Artists Releasing. One hundred years ago today, United Artists opened its doors for the first time and went on to become of one of the most iconic movie studios in history. United Artists Releasing will look to continue this storied legacy.  
  
MGM and Annapurna have been operating a U.S. theatrical distribution joint venture since December 2017. Building off of a successful first year, MGM and Annapurna are solidifying and expanding their enterprise as they embark on the next phase of its evolution. The newly created United Artists Releasing will be bolstered by the addition of the distribution team from Orion Pictures. This addition will enable the distribution teams to navigate under one umbrella to enhance film strategies across tent pole features, lower-budgeted genre films, and auteur-driven awards fare. United Artists Releasing intends to work not only with MGM and Annapurna but with third-party filmmakers – offering an alternative distribution option outside the studio system.  
  
Over the past twelve months, the joint venture has distributed an astonishing ten films from MGM and Annapurna, including the knockout hit _Creed II_ , which was the highest grossing live action Thanksgiving opener ever, the live action anime adaptation _Black Butler_ , and the critically acclaimed, Golden Globe-winning and Academy Award-nominated _Vice_ and _If Beale Street Could Talk_.  
  
“We are excited to evolve our partnership and are honored to carry out projects under United Artists’ remarkable legacy established over the last 100 years. Most notably, we are thrilled to welcome the Bond franchise home to United Artists, with the release of _Bond 25_ next year,” said Jonathan Glickman, President MGM Worldwide Motion Picture Group. “The United Artists brand is a natural fit, as our joint venture was founded around the same principle as its namesake: to help filmmakers maintain financial and artistic control over the marketing and distribution of their diverse slate of films. The venture’s forward-thinking strategic marketing and distribution team will continue to pursue that mission as we expand the partnership.”  
  
“I could not be more excited to have the opportunity to expand this releasing venture under the iconic banner that is United Artists. Annapurna was founded with a very similar intent as the original UA in 1919 – to provide a home for artists and their creations in hopes of moving our culture forward. With the major corporations continuing to consolidate, I believe it is important to have an independent option to provide a sanctuary where we can bring forth transparency, dedication, and fair treatment for all the films we have and will continue to love and service. Our team is comprised of not only the most talented executives in the business but also true lovers of film and to take on this initiative with MGM is as exciting as it is promising,” said Megan Ellison, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Annapurna.  
  
The joint venture will be overseen by an experienced Board of Directors consisting of equal representation from MGM and Annapurna. David Kaminow, President of Marketing and Erik Lomis, President of Distribution, and newly-appointed United Artists Releasing Chief Operating Officer Pam Kunath, who previously held roles at Sony Motion Pictures Group and Screen Gems, will manage the joint venture. Senior members of Annapurna’s theatrical releasing team will also join United Artists Releasing, including President of Publicity, Adriene Bowles, President of Creative Advertising, Michael Pavlic, and Executive Vice President and Head of Media, Anne Yoo. The venture will be bolstered by the addition of the theatrical distribution team from Orion Pictures led by Kevin Wilson, who will assume the role of General Sales Manager of United Artists Releasing, reporting to Lomis. United Artists Releasing will expand into a new office space centrally located between both MGM and Annapurna in the heart of West Hollywood. United Artists Releasing staff located in New York will continue to work out of Annapurna’s Manhattan offices, located in SoHo.  
  
United Artists Releasing has an exciting and diverse 2019 on deck, including _Fighting with My Family,_ directed by Stephen Merchant and starring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Springbok Productions' _Where’d You Go Bernadette_ , directed by Richard Linklater, the stop motion animated feature film _LAIKA’s Missing Link_ , _Child’s Play,_ a contemporary version of the iconic horror classic, Springbok Productions/Enima Studios and Icon Productions’ _Black Butler: Hell’s Domain_ , Springbok’s _Bombshell_ , _Long Shot_ and _The Irishman_ with Martin Scorsese and Paramount, _The Hustle,_ starring Rebel Wilson and Anne Hathaway, _Booksmart_ directed by Olivia Wilde and the animated feature _The Addams Family_ , featuring a voice cast that includes Oscar Isaac and Charlize Theron and directed by Conrad Vernon. In addition, commencing in April of 2019 (after the release of _The Prodigy_ ), Orion Pictures’ theatrical releases will also be distributed through United Artists Releasing. Orion Pictures’ marketing and creative teams will remain intact under John Hegeman at MGM.  
  
In 2020, the 25th installment of the long-running James Bond franchise, produced by Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli, will also be distributed in the U.S. by United Artists Releasing.  
  
About United Artists Releasing  
United Artists Releasing, a joint venture between Metro Goldwyn Mayer (MGM) and Annapurna Pictures (Annapurna), is a U.S. theatrical releasing company. Built upon the legacy of the iconic United Artists motion picture studio, the joint venture provides a home where filmmakers are supported by thoughtful approaches to marketing, publicity and distribution. United Artists Releasing offers content creators an alternative distribution option outside of the studio system and supports Annapurna and MGM’s film slates as well as the films of third-party filmmakers.  
  
About Metro Goldwyn Mayer  
Metro Goldwyn Mayer (MGM) is a leading entertainment company focused on the production and global distribution of film and television content across all platforms. The company owns one of the world’s deepest libraries of premium film and television content as well as the premium pay television network EPIX, which is available throughout the U.S. via cable, satellite, telco and digital distributors. In addition, MGM has investments in numerous other television channels, digital platforms and interactive ventures and is producing premium short-form content for distribution.  
  
About Annapurna Pictures  
Annapurna, founded by Megan Ellison in 2011, focuses on creating sophisticated, high-quality content that is critically and commercially conscious while still appealing to a diverse audience. By upholding the company’s vision to put filmmakers and artists first and preserve their authentic creative voices no matter the genre or medium, the company has garnered a total of 52 Academy Award nominations, including five Best Picture nods for _American Hustle_ , _Her, Zero Dark Thirty, Phantom Thread_ and _Vice_. Annapurna’s current theatrical releases include, Barry Jenkin’s film adaptation of James Baldwin’s _If Beale Street Could Talk_ , Adam McKay’s _Vice_ , and Karyn Kusama’s _Destroyer_. Upcoming releases include, Richard Linklater’s adaptation of Maria Semple’s _Where’d You Go, Bernadette_ , and Olivia Wilde’s directorial debut, _Booksmart_.

* * *

"Dirty Harry Alleges Dirty Tricks By Springbok Over  _Richard Jewell," Esquire_ , February 22, 2019  
  
Clint Eastwood is the quintessential loner in Hollywood. The actor and director has long established a pattern of running things his way and his alone, especially when he's solely behind the camera on a film. But now, Eastwood, who turns 89 this May, is seething with anger over his current project, _Richard Jewell_. Principal photography is mostly complete, except for the actual recreation of the horrific terrorist attack during the 1996 Atlanta Summer Olympics, which will take place in July and August, and the Georgia World Congress Center Authority is reviewing a request to use Centennial Olympic Park for the scene. But Eastwood is not focused on that so much as the demands of his co-producers, Springbok Productions, who attached themselves to the project.  
  
"Let me put it this way," Eastwood intones in his trademark growl. "There's a reason that I've always been distrustful of executives, marketing, budgeting people, or actors trying to impose their own vision on a project. They'll go ahead and spoil that the director intends to do. I learned that lesson when I was roped into _Paint Your Wagon_ , and that lesson has always been proven true. So, Springbok is just another name on that list of meddlers, ruining my work."  
  
This is a very serious charge. Springbok, the company founded by Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain and his wife, actress Charlize Theron, has become the biggest new conglomerate of the day. They are renowned for their creative passion, nurturing the relationship with their audiences, as well as always taking a stand to defend against executive meddling. Up to this point, none of their collaborators have ever been dissatisfied with their work, and this includes people with very different social and political beliefs from their founders, such as Mel Gibson and his company Icon Productions. Now Eastwood is basically accusing them of being the complete opposite of their image.  
  
"I took on this film because I wanted to tell the story of Richard Jewell, an innocent man who had his life uprooted by baseless allegations by the FBI and the people purporting to be journalists who didn't bother to check their sources or cared about the harm they were doing to him and his family. But Springbok and their lily-white, bleeding heart special snowflakes said they wanted to go easy on these culprits of character assassination, that what I was doing was wrong. I'm mad as hell that they softened up my film to advance their own agenda."  
  
But, as I point to him, Kathy Scruggs, the author of the initial article in the _Atlanta Journal-Constitution_ who broke the first story on Jewell as a suspect, and who died in 2001 and isn't here to give her side, has been described by her colleagues and friends as a woman who may have been somewhat of a wild card and overly salty, but who cared about the integrity of her job, who checked her sources rigorously, and above all, never slept with an FBI agent to get her scoop. "The original script is based on lots of rigorous research and verified proof," Eastwood snorts. "It's just the liberal media moving to cover their asses. I guarantee you that they've destroyed a lot of the incriminating material against themselves and have whitewashed their history. The FBI, under the thumb of the Clintons, especially took it upon themselves to railroad this man because he wasn't a conventionally attractive hero and didn't support their socialist agenda enough."  
  
I try again, pointing out the _AJC_ was the first media source to exonerate Jewell, pointing out the impossibility of him having been able to be at the payphone where the bomb threat was called in, which led directly to the FBI writing their letter clearing him. That both Presidents Clinton, in their respective memoirs of 15 years ago, have described great regret at what happened to Jewell and authorities being so sidetracked, they didn't identify perpetrator Eric Robert Rudolph before he infamously bombed abortion clinics and a lesbian bar. That Rudolph, at his sentencing, identified himself as a Christian white supremacist and even said he hoped to disrupt the Games because of its "glorification of a socialist New World Order, as John Lennon extolled in 'Imagine.'" Eastwood simply ignores this and moves on.  
  
"I tell you, that those ungrateful little shits simply ruined a great film. That prissy wimp lead singer and his band have been responsible for polluting our youth's minds and desecrated American values for far too long. And why the hell were they even performing at the Games anyway, or wanting to recreate that for this film? It reeks of self-importance and vanity, a monument to themselves." So, why is Eastwood pushing forward with finishing the film for its December release? "Because I don't leave anything half-finished. I have too much pride in my work ethic to do that. But I have basically disavowed this film. It's not mine, and I'm not going to see it when it's finished. I'm glad I'll never work with them again."  
  
I point out another fact, that Mel Gibson is quite a hardcore conservative, and he's had a very fruitful collaboration and friendship with Springbok. Eastwood looks away. "I thought I knew Mel. I guess I never knew him at all. It's quite disappointing. Who would've thought the man who made _Passion of the Christ_ was more like Pontius Pilate?"

* * *

"Lantern Entertainment and Gary Barber Launch Spyglass Media Group," by Dede Hayes, _Deadline Hollywood_ , March 13, 2019

Former MGM CEO and Spyglass principal Gary Barber and Lantern Entertainment have formally joined forces to form Spyglass Media Group, an independent outfit, which will blend new film and TV projects with the Relativity Media assets.

Strategic investors include Warner Bros., who has inked a first-look arrangement with them, Eagle Pictures, the largest independent distributor in Italy, and the UK’s Cineworld Group, owner of Regal Cinemas and the No. 2 exhibitor in the world. Barber, who received a $260 million payout last year after being pushed out at MGM, is also described as a “significant” investor in the new company, as well as some initial seed money being provided by Springbok Productions. Financial terms were not disclosed for any of the equity holders, though Lantern is the majority investor.

Headquartered in Century City, Spyglass Media will be led by Barber, who will be Chairman and CEO and oversee all operations. The announcement was made today by Barber along with Lantern Entertainment Co-Presidents Andy Mitchell and Milos Brajovic.

“We’ve been talking for months about ways to do business together,” Barber told Deadline in an interview. “Strategically, we felt that one plus one could equal three if we could put together this joint venture.”

Mitchell said the deal filled in a large hole for Lantern, which prevailed in the bankruptcy sale for Relativity Media despite not having any significant background in entertainment. “We had a very junior team in desperate need of experienced management,” he said. “What we were missing was the full-time expertise that Gary has and that our team will have. This is not a disruptive merger. This is an expansion.”

Employees are being briefed on the deal this afternoon, and Barber and Mitchell said some significant executive hires are due to be announced over the next few weeks. The executives declined to offer any specifics as to head count or the budget range of projects. The company, reactivating the Spyglass co-finance and production entity that Barber ran with Roger Birnbaum from its founding in the 1990s, expects to start releasing its first theatrical titles in 2020.

When it acquired Relativity for $289 million, it gained control of its library of films and scripted and unscripted television titles, as well as a distribution joint venture with Luc Besson's EuropaCorp and the production company Trigger Street Productions, best known for the Blockbuster Entertainment series _House of Cards_. It then merged all of this alongside the original Spyglass' library of output in the '90s and 2000s.

However, it bears resemblance to the likes of MGM, Annapurna, Neon, Millennium and other such distributors however, it and other well-capitalized entities have experienced headwinds trying to go it alone. In an industry known for its skepticism, especially with indie turbulence of late and ongoing digital disruption, the reborn Spyglass will face a couple of key questions out of the gate. First, given that Barber had indicated a willingness to sell MGM when he was running the company, is the new Spyglass a long-term play or a short-term flip? (The latter scenario has also gained some traction in recent months among many industry veterans given Lantern’s lack of show business experience.) Also, how will Spyglass be able to forge positive relations with talent and business partners, especially as it is said to be in the running to buy a stake in Miramax alongside the likes of Lionsgate and Viacom and seeking to integrate those assets alongside the ones they just gained?

Asked the flip-or-build question, Barber and Mitchell both expressed full-throated confidence in the new setup’s viability for the long run. “We’ve got strategic partners who are fully committed to helping us build something,” Barber said. “I’m willing to put my own money at risk – not many people in Hollywood are willing to do that.”

Mitchell said the deal took a few months to put together, reflecting the unusual combination of elements. “It was hard to find the guy who would give us a bridge we needed “It was not an easy task to find someone w/the experience and background.”

Barber said the explosion of production companies and studios making original content for Blockbuster Entertainment positions Spyglass well. Though even pedigreed independents like Lionsgate, despite being viewed as attractive acquisition targets, face a tougher road than ever in an industry driven by scale. “There could not be a better time to produce compelling and crowd-pleasing content for worldwide distribution across multiple platforms,” Barber said.

* * *

"Will Ferrell and Adam McKay to Part Ways as Production Team," by Jack Shepherd, _The Independent_ , April 8, 2019  
  
Longtime producing partners Adam McKay and Will Ferrell have split ways.  
  
The duo have worked together on some of Hollywood’s most successful modern comedies – such as _Anchorman, Step Brothers_ and _Talladega Nights_ – and co-founded the website Funny or Die.  
  
Over a decade ago, they co-founded Gary Sanchez Productions, named after a fictional Paraguayan entrepreneur and financier.  
  
“The last 13 years could not have been more enjoyable and satisfying for the two of us at Sanchez Productions,” Ferrell and McKay said in a joint statement.  
  
“We give massive thanks to our incredible staff and executives and all the writers, directors and actors we worked with through the years. The two of us will always work together creatively and always be friends. And we recognize we are lucky as hell to end this venture as such.”  
  
The split comes in the wake of the failure of Sanchez Productions' recent comedy _Holmes & Watson_, an R-rated Sherlock Holmes spoof that won the Razzie for Worst Picture just recently.  
  
There are still a large number of projects yet to be released by McKay and Ferrell under the Sanchez banner, including the Jennifer Lopez-starring _Hustlers_ and the Blockbuster Entertainment series _Dead to Me_ , Olivia Wilde's directorial debut _Booksmart_ , and the Blockbuster Entertainment comedy _Eurovision_ (starring Ferrell). All projects will continue as planned and other producers expected to come on board to run Sanchez Productions in the future.  
  
While Ferrell has continued working on comedy films, McKay has moved on to prestige awards films, having directed Best Picture Oscar nominees _The Big Short_ and _Vice_. He is now planning to join Hyperobject Industries, the company founded by Mandeville Films founders David Hoberman and Todd Lieberman. Tweeting about the split, he wrote: “Thank you to everyone who collaborated with us for 13 years. Proud of the stuff we got to work on and most of all, the amazing people we worked with. Also excited for new stuff to come.”

* * *

"Blockbuster Entertainment Announces Bold Expansion Of Content", BusinessWire, April 30, 2019  
  
2019 is the start of a new era of expansion for Blockbuster Entertainment, and we're proud to help throw back the curtain to see what will happen. Besides giving new seasons to beloved series such as _BoJack Horseman_ , _Big Mouth_ , _F is for Family_ , _Disenchantment, Paradise PD, The Haunting of Hill House, The Handmaid's Tale, The Man in the High Castle, Castle Rock, She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, Transparent, Mindhunter_ and _Stranger Things_ , we have a massive list of new shows coming down the pipeline, this year and the years to come. Something to note is that some production companies and studios, like Disney, are deciding to experiment a bit by choosing to release content weekly instead of the binge-watching model that has become standard.  
  
Denver and Delilah Animation is continuing to build on the legacy of _BoJack_ with the new spinoff series, _Tuca & Bertie_, which is expected to be quite a big reveal. Furthermore, the confirmation of turning _Horsin' Around_ as its own series will be sure to be quite an interesting experience. And more is expected to come from here. In addition, they are coming forward with the planned revival of _Animaniacs_ next year, and Justin Roiland's new series _Solar Opposites_. Speaking of spinoffs, the team of _Big Mouth_ have several in the works, such as _Human Resources_ , focusing on where the hormone monsters work, at a date yet to be determined, and one that will debut at the same time as season three of the parent show, _Gordie's Journey_ , starring Martin Short as the titular character, a Canadian cis straight male moose masseuse in search of learning about where he fits in the spectrum of human sexuality.  
  
Disney is deciding to really start revving up production and release of new shows for our service, starting with the Star Wars spin-off series _The Mandalorian,_ out on November 12. Lucasfilm will come forward with an-as-yet untitled Obi-Wan Kenobi limited series with the return of Ewan McGregor to the role and focusing on his exile in Tattooine, and an untitled series about the character of Cassian Andor from the film _Rogue One_ in the future. Marvel is starting with particularly aggressive expansion for the MCU as a whole, starting in 2020, with shows such as _The Falcon and the Winter Soldier_ , _Hawkeye_ (finally showing the character's history), _WandaVision_ (a spinoff focusing on these two characters), _Loki_ (revolving around the version of the character that escaped from New York with the Tesseract during the "time heist"), _What If...?_ (a series focused on what might have happened if certain events had occurred differently, like what if Thanos was redeemed and part of the time heist against his past self, for example), and series for new characters like _Ms. Marvel_ , _Moon Knight_ and _She-Hulk_. Disney will do an expansion on the world of _Monsters, Inc._ with the sequel series _Monsters at Work_ , and create worth educational content with the irreverent new series _The World According to Jeff Goldblum_. Add to that a variety of different and varied series, as well as the planned adaptation of the novel _Stargirl._  
  
Reese Witherspoon is producing a new series, _The Morning Show_ , starring her, Jennifer Aniston and Steve Carrell. There will be a variety of interesting shows coming such as M. Night Shyamalan's _Servant_ , _Dead to Me_ , _How Do You Live_ , _Dickinson_ , _Reprisal_ , _Gremlins: Secrets of the Mogwai_ , the return of _The Boondocks_ , _Dollface_ , _Snoopy in Space_ , and far too many additional ones to name here.  
  
Movies of course continue to be an important part of Blockbuster Exclusive Series and content, especially with recent successes like Miramax's _The Perfection_ , Voltage Pictures' _Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile_ , the Motley Crue biopic _The Dirt_ , and Alfonso Cuaron's _Roma._ This November, Craig Brewer's biopic _Dolemite Is My Name_ , starring Eddie Murphy as Rudy Ray Moore and focusing on the creation of the cult classic blaxploitation film, is sure to be a winner.  
  
Blockbuster Entertainment is proud to reveal all of this, and be sure to make every night a Blockbuster night!

* * *

Springbok Productions' Website Home Page Message for 20th Anniversary, July 11, 2019

Welcome to the website of Springbok Productions! 20 years ago, we were founded with an intent to help push the envelope of storytelling and bring Hollywood into the future, and today, we are celebrating two decades of entertainment!  
  
From humble (or not-so-humble) beginnings in 1999, when Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain, his wife, Charlize Theron, and veteran film producer and our CEO, Jennifer Todd, Springbok was intended to lead a paradigm shift in the entertainment industry, pushing films, television, animation, video games, staged musicals, the record industry, book publishing, amusement parks, and Internet content to reach new heights.  
  
The story of Springbok is one of both inspiration for creative work, and cooperation with partners around the world, bringing out the best in each other, as well as one of ensuring that everyone who has notes to share, and opinions to give on a project will be heard. We have longstanding and fruitful partnerships with all the major studios, several mini-majors, indie distributors, and many other production companies around the world. We are also noted for making critical investments and seed money with other groups to help give them a leg up, with the intent of mixing business with pleasure.  
  
Springbok Productions also incorporates Denver and Delilah Animation, Enima Studios, Enima Games, Springbok Games, Exploitation Records, Autumn Deer Press, Cobb Theatres, Muvico Theatres, Vue Cinemas and HOYTS Cinemas, and our studio lot in Playa Vista, California is the first studio lot to be built since the Great Depression. We are also a Fortune 50 and a Dow 30 company, with our stock traded on the New York Stock Exchange, NASDAQ, London Exchequer, Nikkei index, Australian Securities Exchange, and so on.  
  
And so, here we sit, 20 years of success! May the next 20 be even better!

* * *

"VC Capital Infusion for Springbok," by Manori Ravindran, _Variety_ , July 20, 2019

Deep pockets continue to be attracted to Springbok Productions for non-ownership equity or non-equity investments, with notable venture capital firms ponying up more money for a company that has been around for 20 years and traded publicly for slightly less than half of that time.

Among those that have jumped in to currently give money either for the first time or as an additional part of earlier funding include the Silicon Valley-based VC firm Benchmark, Bain Capital's VC arm Bain Capital Ventures, Vornado Realty Trust (which Kurt Cobain and Charlize Theron have invested in), Accel Partners, Japan's Nomura Securities and Mizuho Capital, Canada's Clearbanc, M/C Partners, One Equity Partners, Apollo Global Management and Germany's Hydra Partners.

Altogether, this adds another $7.8 billion to the pot Springbok has at its disposal. While small compared to the money they already have, it represents the fact that Springbok has rocketed so far in so little time that everyone wants to do business with them.

* * *

“1996 bombing to be re-enacted at Centennial Olympic Park for Clint Eastwood film _Richard Jewell_ ”, by Rodney Ho, _Atlanta Journal-Constitution_ , July 27, 2019  
  
Any highlight reel of Centennial Olympic Park would likely omit what happened July 27, 1996, during the 1996 Summer Olympics: Eric Robert Rudolph’s bombing that killed a woman and injured more than 100. But Clint Eastwood is shooting a film about the man falsely implicated in the bombing, calling it _Richard Jewell_. And he, along with co-producer partners Springbok Productions, have convinced the park’s overseer Georgia World Congress Center Authority to use the actual location for shooting a reenactment. The Georgia World Congress Center released this statement in regards to its thought process behind accepting the shoot on its property: “As with any film shoot in Centennial Olympic Park, we have done our due diligence to understand the subject matter of the film and its impact to the park. While the backdrop of the film is the park, the focus of the story is on Mr. Jewell.” A notice was sent to nearby residents on the borders of the park this morning. The filming will eat up nine days and shooting of the bombing itself will happen August 1 and/or 2.  
  
“In July and August, the north Park will be closed to the public as Disney/Fox re-constructs Centennial Olympic Park of 1996 for a movie they are filming in the Park. Set up starts July 12, filming is set for July 23-26 and July 29 - August 2.  
  
The night of August 1 to morning of August 2 will has a noise permit (midnight Thursday to 2 am Friday). There will be about 800 cast and actors in the area during filming.”  
  
The note does not cite the specific movie but it’s obviously the Disney film _Richard Jewell_ , set to be distributed under its Touchstone Pictures banner, along with the recently acquired 20th Century Fox, who originally had the project on its schedule. The film stars _Mad Men_ star Jon Hamm as an FBI agent, Olivia Wilde as an _Atlanta Journal-Constitution_ reporter, Kathy Bates as Jewell’s mom and Sam Rockwell as Jewell’s attorney. Relative unknown Paul Walter Hauser will pay Jewell. The band Nirvana, whose frontman, Kurt Cobain, founded Springbok along with his wife, actress Charlize Theron, will appear in the film as themselves. Production has just begun. Based on the casting, it appears the film will focus on the lead up, the bombing itself and the immediate aftermath when Jewell was first deemed a hero, then a false target of suspicion.  
  
During a late-night concert by Cobain and his bandmates at a packed park during the first week of the Olympics, which was also being broadcast live on TV, security guard Jewell noticed the suspicious package and alerted other authorities. But it detonated before the entire area had been cleared. Still, his sharp eyes saved lives. Rudolph later bombed a lesbian bar and two abortion clinics. Once targeted, he became a fugitive for many years before he was found in North Carolina. He is now in a maximum security prison for life. The movie is currently seeking extras for another portion of the film. At some point, they will seek extras for the bombing scene. In a coincidence, Charter Communications’ Spectrum Cable is currently filming season two of an anthology series _Manhunt_ also focused on the Jewell case but it’s shooting in Pittsburgh. That TV show recently filmed a bombing reenactment as well.  
  
The movie, set for release on December 13, was recently the target of controversy when Eastwood publicly disavowed the film because of creative differences with Springbok, but stated he would complete the film because of his work ethic.

* * *

"Springbok Sells Half-Stake Of Book Publisher Unit," by Dave McNary, _Variety_ , August 3, 2019

Springbok Productions has announced that it will sell 50 percent of its book publishing unit, Autumn Deer Press, to publishing conglomerate HarperCollins, part of the Rupert Murdoch-owned News Corporation, to refashion the imprint as a joint venture of the two companies. Springbok will earn $5 billion from the sale.

"This is the next step forward for Autumn Deer Publishing," Springbok CEO Jennifer Todd said in a prepared statement to the press. "For nearly 20 years, we have made sure to really ensure that the company represents quality in publication of fiction and nonfiction titles, and are quite proud of the millions of books that we have sold in that time, both in physical and digital formats. We are proud to have a valued partner in HarperCollins, long one of the biggest book publishers in the world, and together we will bring Autumn Deer Publishing to the next level."

Autumn Deer Publishing began releasing works in 2001, starting with the memoir of actress Anne Heche. While, like the rest of Springbok, it has certainly grown considerably over the years, unlike the other divisions, it has had the slowest rate of growth overall, unable to move past the Top 20 list of biggest book publishing imprints, with its competitors having too big an advantage to overcome. Many expect that Springbok offloading half of the publisher will have a massive effect on its stock price worldwide, and that it will be found that the publisher was acting as a bit of an anchor on the company. Indeed, after news of the sale, its stock rose $25.

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"CBS and Viacom to Combine," BusinessWire, August 13, 2019

  * _Creates a leading global, multiplatform, premium content company, positioned to be one of the most important content producers and providers in the world_
    * _Portfolio of powerful consumer brands spanning all content categories and demographics_
    * _Iconic library of 140,000+premium TV episodes and 3,600+ film titles_
    * _Production capabilities across five continents, including more than 750 series ordered to or in production_
    * _One of a few major film studios operating on a global basis_
    * _Among the biggest content spenders in the industry, with more than $13 billion spent in the last 12 months_
    * _Diverse and fast-growing portfolio of direct-to-consumer offerings_
    * _Global reach of more than 4.3 billion cumulative TV subscribers in 180+ countries_
    * _#1 share of broadcast and cable viewing across all key demographics in the U.S._
    * _First-choice distribution and advertising partner with industry-leading reach and capabilities_
  * _Delivers financial benefits that will position the combined company to create significant value for all shareholders_
    * _Increased financial scale for significant and sustained investment in programming and innovation_
    * _Attractive growth outlook_
    * _EPS accretive transaction with estimated run-rate annual synergies of $500 million_
    * _Highly cash flow generative_
    * _Committed to maintaining an investment-grade credit rating and modest dividend payment_
  * _Bob Bakish to lead the combined company as President and CEO; Joe Ianniello will serve as Chairman and CEO, CBS_



NEW YORK-CBS Corp. (NYSE: CBS.A, CBS) and Viacom (NASDAQ: VIA, VIAB), two of the world’s leading entertainment companies, today announced they have entered into a definitive agreement to (re)combine in an all-stock merger, creating a combined company with more than $28 billion in revenue.  
  
The combined company, ViacomCBS Inc., will be a leading global, multiplatform, premium content company, with the assets, capabilities and scale to be one of the most important content producers and providers in the world. The combined company will be a scale player globally, with leadership positions in markets across the U.S., Europe, Latin America and Asia. This includes the largest television business in the U.S., with the highest share of broadcast and cable viewing across all key audience demographics, and strength in every key category, including News, Sports, General Entertainment, Pop Culture, Comedy, Music and Kids – making it a first-choice partner to distributors and advertisers. In addition, the combined company will possess a portfolio of fast-growing direct-to-consumer platforms, including both subscription and ad-supported offerings. It will also include a major Hollywood film studio, Paramount Pictures, which has been a producer and global distributor of filmed entertainment for more than a century and continues to be a global box office driver. Taken together, these distinct strengths will accelerate CBS and Viacom’s ability to deliver an array of compelling content to important and diverse audiences across both traditional and emerging platforms around the world.  
  
Bob Bakish, President and Chief Executive Officer, Viacom, will become President and Chief Executive Officer of the combined company. Bakish said: “Today marks an important day for CBS and Viacom, as we unite our complementary assets and capabilities and become one of only a few companies with the breadth and depth of content and reach to shape the future of our industry. Our unique ability to produce premium and popular content for global audiences at scale – for our own platforms and for our partners around the world – will enable us to maximize our business for today, while positioning us to lead for years to come. As we look to the future, I couldn’t be more excited about the opportunities ahead for the combined company and all of our stakeholders – including consumers, the creative community, commercial partners, employees and, of course, our shareholders.”  
  
Joe Ianniello, President and Acting Chief Executive Officer, CBS, will become Chairman and CEO of CBS. Ianniello, who will oversee all CBS-branded assets in his new role, said: “This merger brings an exciting new set of opportunities to both companies. At CBS, we have outstanding momentum right now – creatively and operationally – and Viacom’s portfolio will help accelerate that progress. I look forward to all we will do together as we build on our ongoing success. And personally, I am pleased to remain focused on CBS’s top priority – continuing our transformation into a global, multiplatform, premium content company.”  
  
Shari Redstone, Vice Chair of the Boards of Directors, CBS and Viacom, said: “I am really excited to see these two great companies come together so that they can realize the incredible power of their combined assets. My father once said ‘content is king,’ and never has that been more true than today. Through CBS and Viacom’s shared passion for premium content and innovation, we will establish a world-class, multiplatform media organization that is well-positioned for growth in a rapidly transforming industry. Led by a talented leadership team that is excited by the future, ViacomCBS’s success will be underpinned by a commitment to strong values and a culture that empowers our exceptional people at all levels of the organization.”  
  
Strategic Rationale

  * Premium content at scale. The combined company will possess a portfolio of powerful consumer brands, including CBS, Showtime, Nickelodeon, MTV, BET, Comedy Central and Paramount Network, as well as one of the largest libraries of iconic intellectual property, spanning every key genre and addressing consumers of all ages and demographics. This library comprises 140,000+ TV episodes and 3,600+ film titles, and reunites fan-favorite franchises such as _Star Trek_ and _Mission: Impossible_. The combined company will also have more than 750 series currently ordered to or in production. In addition, it will include a major Hollywood film studio, Paramount Pictures, which creates and distributes feature-length entertainment around the world. The combined company will also be one of the largest content spenders, with more than $13 billion spent in the last 12 months.
  * Global leadership positions. The combined company will be a broadcast and cable leader in key markets around the world, reaching more than 4.3 billion cumulative TV subscribers. In the U.S., the combined company’s portfolio of broadcast, premium and cable networks will have the highest share of viewing on television among key audiences, including Kids, African Americans and Hispanic viewers. In addition, the combined company will operate strong broadcast networks in the UK, Argentina and Australia, as well as pay-TV networks across more than 180 countries. It will also have significant global production capabilities across five continents – creating content in 45 languages.
  * Powerful, three-part strategy for growth. In a quickly evolving media landscape, the combined company will benefit from its distinct competitive position as one of the most important global content providers – for its own platforms as well as for third parties. This will enable the combined company to accelerate the growth of its direct-to-consumer strategy, enhance distribution and advertising opportunities and create a leading producer and licensor of premium content to third-party platforms globally.



1\. Accelerate direct-to-consumer strategy. Together, the combined company will be positioned to accelerate and expand its direct-to-consumer strategy through its proven and diverse portfolio of both subscription and ad-supported offerings. These include the CBS All Access app and Showtime, which deliver premium, branded content live and on demand to millions of subscribers; Pluto TV, the leading free streaming TV service in the U.S.; and niche products such as CBSN, ET Live and Noggin. It also has an opportunity to expand globally by leveraging its existing strength in both subscription and ad-supported offerings via Blockbuster Entertainment, combined library, content production capabilities and international infrastructure.  
  
2\. Enhance distribution and advertising opportunities. The breadth and depth of the combined company’s reach across both traditional and new platforms – including 22% of U.S. TV viewership – will drive important new distribution and advertising opportunities. For distributors, this includes forming more expansive and multifaceted relationships, and applying the benefit of retransmission consent across a combined portfolio. For advertisers and agencies, the combined company will provide industry-leading reach through a variety of formats, including a portfolio of differentiated advanced advertising and marketing solutions, such as CBS Interactive, Viacom Vantage and Viacom Velocity, which will be applied against significant, expanded inventory across the portfolio.  
  
3\. Create a leading producer and licensor of premium content to third-party platforms globally. As one of the biggest premium content providers in the world, the combined company is positioned to deliver content to a diverse global customer base that includes MVPDs, broadcast and cable networks, subscription and ad-supported streaming services, mobile providers and social platforms. Notably, in addition to content licensing, CBS and Viacom are developing must-watch programming for a broad range of third-party networks and platforms to feed significant demand for original, premium content.

  * Significant value for all shareholders. The combined company will have an attractive growth outlook and increased financial scale with substantial free cash flow, which will enable significant and sustained investment in programming and innovation, as well as support the combined company’s commitment to maintaining a modest dividend payment. The transaction will be EPS accretive and is expected to deliver an estimated $500 million in annualized run-rate synergies within 12-24 months following closing, with additional strategic benefits. With one of the strongest balance sheets in the industry, the combined company will benefit from a solid investment grade rating.



Leadership, Governance and Transaction Terms  
  
In addition to Bakish and Ianniello, the leadership team of the combined company will include Christina Spade as EVP and Chief Financial Officer; and Christa D’Alimonte as EVP, General Counsel and Secretary.  
  
The Board of Directors will consist of 13 members: six independent members from CBS, four independent members from Viacom, the President and CEO of ViacomCBS and two National Amusements, Inc. (NAI) designees. Shari Redstone will be appointed Chair.  
  
The merger agreement was approved by the Boards of Directors of both CBS and Viacom by unanimous vote of those present, upon the unanimous recommendations of the Special Committees of the CBS and Viacom Boards of Directors, respectively. Existing CBS shareholders will own approximately 61% of the combined company and existing Viacom shareholders will own approximately 39% of the combined company on a fully diluted basis. Under the terms of the merger agreement, each Viacom Class A voting share and Viacom Class B non-voting share will convert into 0.59625 of a Class A voting share and Class B non-voting share of CBS, respectively.  
  
NAI, which holds approximately 78.9% and 79.8% of the Class A voting shares of CBS and Viacom, respectively, has agreed to deliver consents sufficient to assure approval of the transaction. More than two-thirds of the CBS directors unaffiliated with NAI (and all of those unaffiliated directors who voted on the transaction) have approved the transaction, as required in order to permit NAI to consent to the transaction under the terms of the 2018 settlement agreement entered into among CBS, NAI and certain other parties thereto.  
  
The transaction is subject to regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions. It is expected to close by the 2019 calendar year end.  
  
The Special Committee of CBS’s Board of Directors is being advised by Centerview Partners LLC and Lazard Frères & Co. LLC as its financial advisors and by Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP as its legal counsel. The Special Committee of Viacom’s Board of Directors is being advised by LionTree Advisors LLC and Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC as its financial advisors and by Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP as its legal counsel. Viacom is being advised by Shearman & Sterling LLP. NAI is being advised by Evercore as its financial advisor and by Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP as its legal counsel.  
  
About CBS  
CBS Corporation (NYSE: CBS.A and CBS) is a mass media company that creates and distributes industry-leading content across a variety of platforms to audiences around the world. The Company has businesses with origins that date back to the dawn of the broadcasting age as well as new ventures that operate on the leading edge of media. CBS owns the most-watched television network in the U.S. and one of the world’s largest libraries of entertainment content, making its brand –"the Eye” – one of the most-recognized in business. The Company’s operations span virtually every field of media and entertainment, including cable, publishing, local TV, film and interactive. CBS’ businesses include CBS Television Network, The CW (a joint venture between CBS Corporation and Warner Bros. Entertainment), Network 10 Australia, CBS Television Studios, CBS Global Distribution Group, CBS Consumer Products, CBS Home Entertainment, CBS Interactive, CBS All Access, the Company’s direct-to-consumer digital streaming subscription service, CBS Sports Network, CBS Films, Showtime Networks, Pop, Smithsonian Networks, Simon & Schuster, CBS Television Stations and CBS Experiences.  
  
About Viacom  
Viacom creates entertainment experiences that drive conversation and culture around the world. Through television, film, digital media, live events, merchandise and solutions, its brands connect with diverse, young and young at heart audiences in more than 180 countries.

* * *

"Why This CBS-Viacom Merger Will Be Different From 1999," by Georg Salazai and Paul Bond, _The Hollywood Reporter_ , August 14, 2019  
  
In early September 1999, Viacom and CBS unveiled a roughly $35 billion stock combination — at the time the largest U.S. media deal ever — which was completed in 2000. They then agreed to separate in 2005 and the separation became effective in 2006. Fast-forward nearly two decades, and the two entertainment companies are recombining.  
  
"There are lots of differences, but some is the same," Hal Vogel, CEO of Vogel Capital Management and a former Wall Street entertainment analyst, told _The Hollywood Reporter_ about the parallels and differences. "Same is that the market was [at a high] and exuberant after a long bull run into 1999. In 1999, there was the same interest on building scale and same rather messy issues about combining managements."  
  
Below is a closer look at the things that are similar and others that are very different this time around.  
  
Viacom isn't the buyer this time.  
  
One of the biggest differences is that the CBS-Viacom deal of 2019 will see CBS shareholders own a majority of the combined company, while in 1999, Viacom was the acquiring company.  
  
The stock exchange ratio of well less than one CBS share per Viacom share is due to the former's larger market capitalization. "Viacom's performance has clearly been improving, but on a stand-alone basis we believe CBS is the stronger entity," Loop Capital analyst Alan Gould wrote in a recent note in reference to Viacom's perceived bigger challenges in the digital age.  
  
However, Viacom for now gets the lead position in the merged company's name: ViacomCBS.  
  
Consolidation is in focus again, but this time there is also competition from tech giants.  
  
With Comcast having bought European pay TV giant Sky, and The Walt Disney Company having taken over large parts of 21st Century Fox, boosting companies' scale through consolidation has been one of the big discussion topics on Wall Street and in Hollywood over the past couple of years.  
  
In 1999, mergers and acquisitions were also a big talking point. The Federal Communications Commission back then changed rules to allow one company to own more than one television station in a single market, leading media companies to explore deals.  
  
Back then, Viacom, the fourth-largest media firm in the U.S. at the time, struck the deal for CBS to become the sector's No. 2 behind Time Warner.  
  
This time around though, the consolidation takes place with the backdrop of technology and streaming giants — from Blockbuster Entertainment and Amazon to Apple, Alphabet/Google and Facebook — competing for consumer time, attention and spending. Case in point: cord-cutting, which remains a key talking point for all entertainment industry executives.  
  
As CBS Corp. acting CEO Joe Ianniello, who will oversee the CBS-branded assets after the deal closes, wrote in a staff memo on Tuesday: "There is a race to create more of the best content. We are already leaders in this regard, and today’s news will accelerate our global ambitions."  
  
The Redstone factor — with a twist.  
  
Viacom in 1999 was led by Sumner Redstone, now 96, who had a reputation for enjoying the deal hunt. This time around, his daughter, Shari Redstone, vice chair of Viacom and CBS Corp., will be a key player in ensuring the companies' marriage goes well.  
  
Shari Redstone has said in the past that scale has benefits in the digital age when entertainment companies both cooperate and compete with streaming giant Blockbuster Entertainment, and technology powerhouses, such as Apple, Facebook and Amazon. "A combination of CBS and Viacom might offer substantial synergies that would allow the combined company to respond even more aggressively and effectively to the challenges of the changing entertainment and media landscape," National Amusements said in 2016 when it called for the firms to explore a recombination, which failed, just like a similar request again failed in 2018.  
  
This time around, National Amusements had promised not to push for another set of talks for a while, but the companies initiated talks themselves. However, Redstone is known to support the deal.  
  
Her father had touted the first Viacom-CBS combination in 1999 this way: "With Viacom and CBS performing at the top of their games, the timing for this could not be better. We both saw that we could create a media giant and that's what we both set out to do."  
  
He famously changed his tune in 2005 when he announced plans for resplitting the companies. Back then, the idea was for both companies' business portfolios to be more focused, in turn allowing their stocks to do better on their own. Viacom was seen as the growth company back then, while CBS was seen as the dividend-paying value play for investors. But CBS shares soon outperformed Viacom's and those of most other peers, and CBS started charging retransmission fees and developing other new revenue streams, while Viacom started facing ratings and carriage deal challenges in the digital age.  
  
Observers say that Shari Redstone will want the joint management team to work together and prove that the combined company can provide financial upside and innovation in a competitive market that is changing quickly in the digital age.  
  
She quoted her father in Tuesday's deal announcement, updated for the digital age, saying: "My father once said ‘content is king,’ and never has that been more true than today. Through CBS and Viacom’s shared passion for premium content and innovation, we will establish a world-class, multiplatform media organization that is well-positioned for growth in a rapidly transforming industry."  
  
Management issues.  
  
Until Leslie Moonves was forced to leave his role as chairman and CEO of CBS late last year amid sexual harassment allegations, the management setup of a combined CBS-Viacom was always a key sticking point in deal talks.  
  
This time around, the two companies agreed on key executive suite issues: Viacom CEO Bob Bakish will run the combined firm as president and CEO, CBS CFO Christina Spade will serve as CFO, and acting CBS CEO Joe Ianniello will oversee the CBS-branded assets as chairman and CEO of CBS.  
  
The management question will be key as the 1999 marriage ran into problems when chairman and CEO Sumner Redstone kept clashing with CBS boss Mel Karmazin, who was named president and COO of the combined firm. The result: Karmazin exited in 2004.  
  
Some see the fact that the popular and jovial Bakish and the successful Ianniello seem committed to working together to make the combination a success as a key win, which provides management continuity and avoids seeing Ianniello leave with a big payout he could get if not named CEO of CBS. Gould, for one, predicted that with Ianniello sticking around, "the Street will put a higher multiple on the combined company."  
  
Ianniello highlighted the momentum and opportunities of the two companies now and once they unite. "At CBS, we have outstanding momentum right now — creatively and operationally — and Viacom’s portfolio will help accelerate that progress," he said. And in a staff memo he focused on the team work, writing: "Bob [Bakish] and I will ensure a smooth and steady integration of our two great companies."  
  
Bakish in announcing the deal also focused on the unifying aspects, saying: "We unite our complementary assets and capabilities and become one of only a few companies with the breadth and depth of content and reach to shape the future of our industry."  
  
And he highlighted a continued focus on working with the interests of various groups in mind: "I couldn’t be more excited about the opportunities ahead for the combined company and all of our stakeholders — including consumers, the creative community, commercial partners, employees and, of course, our shareholders.”  
  
And Bakish highlighted in a staff memo: "Very importantly to me, CBS and Viacom are also a great fit. ... Make no mistake, together we aren’t just bigger — we are much, much better."

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"Woodstock 50 A Celebration Worthy of Original," by Rob Sheffield, _Rolling Stone_ , August 19, 2019  
  
When one thinks of the original Woodstock in 1969, a myriad of images come to mind. But regardless of which one dominates, the one that certainly has been especially resonant up to now is that it was a once-in-a-lifetime experience that simply cannot be replicated. This lesson seemed to be borne out with Woodstock '94, a pleasant experience though overshadowed by rains worse than the original that turned the fields into mud, muddy mosh pits and somewhat of a lack of really standout artists on the bill; but then made ever more apparent with Woodstock 1999, an abysmal affair known for ruthless and mercenary price gouging to try to make back the money, poor construction planning for amenities, yet more rain, then blazing riots and fires as the crowd got into an angry froth and destroyed everything, with deaths and rapes also sadly occurring. Thus, it seemed like folly to try and tap the Woodstock well once more.  
  
Yet original festival promoter Michael Lang has done exactly that, and may even have outdone himself, with an anniversary celebration far bigger than what came before. A weeklong affair at Watkins Glen International, Woodstock 50 is the true sequel to the original affair on Max Yasgur's farm five decades ago. The world's largest gathering of artists across nearly 70 years' worth of recorded music history, both alive and dead, spanning all various genres to ensure something for everyone, and it is probably that, most of all, which helped ensure this anniversary tribute would succeed where the other two failed. That, along with impeccable planning for the venue, considerable organization of everything, concessions at reasonable prices as well as prepped and disposed of in an environmentally safe manner, and even managing to ensure that green sources of energy powered the lighting and sound equipment for every act. Woodstock 50 clearly had ambition to spare, and it paid off considerable dividends to Lang, the artists and the audience.  
  
The surprising number of video backed with live band sets of deceased artists could easily be seen as a cash grab to cynics, but the audience showed there was a real adoration and hunger for it. Since it included the OG show, Elvis Presley In Concert, reuniting him with his '70s TCB Band that has played to audiences worldwide (and earned the Guinness World Record for "first live show by an artist no longer living") since 1997, among the others, it definitely gave a legitimacy to the affair. Many times, the result was seamless, making one feel that these artists truly were back from the dead and onstage with the musicians, and the crowds ate it up.  
  
Not that the living acts were slouches in that affair. Starting with the two sole survivors from the original age of rock and roll, Jerry Lee Lewis and Little Richard, everyone gave their all to their sets as it wound the way from "Tutti Frutti" to festival closers Nirvana and "Heart-Shaped Box." Indeed, not a bad performance was to be found among this gathering, tearing into it all like it might legitimately be their last time. Some notable highlights included Queen + Adam Lambert, continuing to ride the wave of the Oscar-winning film _Bohemian Rhapsody_ and sweeping the entire crowd off their feet, the original Black Sabbath back together one last time to correct the one flaw of their farewell tour done without drummer Bill Ward, the Sex Pistols being dug up for one last rodeo with John Lydon in his typical state, KISS showcasing the set they've been doing on their End of the Road World Tour (though it's the end only for Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons and not KISS as a whole...at least so the wording lets us say), Motley Crue proving that their "cessation of touring contract" was the sham we all expected by them choosing to reunite to ride the wave of the biopic adaptation of their book _The Dirt_ , and seeing many Woodstock originals back on stage, like Santana following more recent hits like "Oye Como Va" and "Smooth" with an oldies-centric set and ripping once again into original film setpiece "Soul Sacrifice."  
  
Though if any act was really being anticipated above all of the others, it would clearly be Nirvana, who closed the festival with a long setlist spanning their entire career. Kurt Cobain clearly seemed to have everyone in the palm of his hand and never let go.  
  
By the end of the festival, all my skepticism had been washed away. It's enough to make one believe that the ideals of the '60s may yet come true, if not soon.

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"Hasbro Acquires Entertainment One in $4 Billion All-Cash Deal," by Elaine Low, _Variety_ , August 22, 2019  
  
Toymaker Hasbro is acquiring studio Entertainment One in an all-cash transaction valued at $4 billion, bringing _My Little Pony_ and Nerf under the same umbrella as _Peppa Pig_ and _PJ Masks_ and furthering Hasbro’s growth goals in the infant and preschool categories.  
  
Hasbro aims to expand its operations in film and TV. Entertainment One’s production infrastructure in multiple markets and its children’s programming IP made it an attractive target for Hasbro. Sources say the news came as a surprise to most people at Entertainment One.  
  
Top eOne execs will join the Hasbro team, said the companies in a joint statement. The independent studio pointed to its kid-friendly fare, noting that it has been transforming its business to focus on “high-quality premium talent-driven content,” including its _Clifford the Big Red Dog_ and _Monster Problems_.  
  
But the sale to Hasbro raises questions about whether eOne will remain in the business of producing adult-focused movies and TV series. Entertainment One’s active slate includes Blockbuster Entertainment's revival of _Trailer Park Boys_ and We TV’s _Growing Up Hip Hop: New York_. eOne also is an active part in Steven Spielberg's Amblin Partners.  
  
On the investor call after the market close Thursday, Hasbro CEO Brian Goldner highlighted the potential to mesh eOne’s strength as a studio with Hasbro’s intellectual property.  
  
“With eOne’s content creation capabilities … we can reach audience on all screens,” including cable and streaming, he said on the call.  
  
Hasbro and Paramount Pictures in 2017 inked a deal to make live-action and animated films based on the toymaker’s intellectual property, but execs on the call indicated that that partnership would continue, even after the acquisition of eOne, opening the door to Paramount to further develop Hasbro’s IP.  
  
Noting that eOne is profitable and that half of its EBITDA last came from its family brand portfolio, Goldner called _Peppa Pig_ and _PJ Masks_ “highly profitable and merchandisable.”  
  
Per the terms of the deal, eOne shareholders will receive 5.60 pounds per common share, a 31% premium to eOne’s 30-day volume weight average price as of Thursday. Hasbro said the deal will be financed with the proceeds of debt financing and $1 billion to $1.25 billion in cash from equity financing.  
  
“The acquisition of eOne adds beloved story-led global family brands that deliver strong operating returns to Hasbro’s portfolio and provides a pipeline of new brand creation driven by family-oriented storytelling, which will now include Hasbro’s IP,” said Goldner in a statement. “In addition, Hasbro will leverage eOne’s immersive entertainment capabilities to bring our portfolio of brands that have appeal to gamers, fans and families to all screens globally and realize full franchise economics across our blueprint strategy for shareholders. We are excited to welcome eOne’s talented employees from around the world into the Hasbro family.”  
  
Adding eOne to Hasbro will be accretive to adjusted EPS in the first year after the transaction, with mid- to high-teens accretion to adjusted EPS in the third full year after the close of the deal.  
  
Entertainment One chairman of the board Allan Leighton said that he is “very pleased by this exciting development,” calling it a testament to eOne’s management vision, leadership and execution.  
  
“Hasbro’s portfolio of integrated toy, game and consumer products, will further fuel the tremendous success we’ve achieved at eOne,” said eOne CEO Darren Throop. “There’s a strong cultural fit between our two companies; eOne’s stated mission is to unlock the power and value of creativity which aligns with Hasbro’s corporate objectives. eOne teams will continue to do what they do best, bolstered by the access to Hasbro’s extensive portfolio of richly creative IP and merchandising strength. In addition, the resulting expanded Hasbro presence in Canada through eOne’s deep roots will bring world class talent and production capabilities to Hasbro. Along with our leadership team, I look forward to working with Hasbro on our joint growth and success for many years to come.”

* * *

" _Knives Out_ Duo Rian Johnson and Ram Bergman Form T-Street With Funding From Valence Media/MRC," by Mike Fleming, Jr., _Deadline Hollywood_ , September 5, 2019  
  
Here in Toronto for the Saturday premier of _Knives Out_ , writer/director Rian Johnson and producer Ram Bergman have launched T-Street Productions, an entrepreneurial new company that will generate original content for film and TV shows. The venture is fully capitalized by global media company Valence Media, and longtime picture partners Johnson and Bergman have the financial ability to develop, produce and finance projects, with T-Street holding a substantial financial stake.  
  
T-Street launches with a first look deal with Valence Media’s MRC for film and television projects. Valence Media will hold a substantial minority equity stake in the company.  
  
Johnson and Bergman said they will soon be opening offices, and staffing up to hit the ground running. They intend to make their own original creations through the company, and produce others.  
  
T-Street comes directly out of the experience Johnson and Bergman had in making _Knives Out_ , a package that Deadline revealed on the eve of last Toronto. It was something that came together lightning quick to take advantage of an unexpected hiatus for Daniel Craig between when Danny Boyle exited and Cary Fukunaga took the directing reins of the James Bond film _No Time To Die_. The Agatha Christie-style whodunit was expected to be the hot project of the last TIFF market, but didn’t last that long.  
  
“We were about to go to Toronto right after speaking to you about _Knives Out_ , but we didn’t make it there because MRC came in with an aggressive and creative deal and we canceled the trip,” Bergman told Deadline. “It was exactly six weeks from the moment we talked with you to when we started filming.”  
  
 _Knives Out_ stars Craig, Chris Evans, Ana de Armas, Jamie Lee Curtis, Toni Colette, Don Johnson, Michael Shannon, LaKeith Stanfield, Katherine Langford, Jaeden Martell and Christopher Plummer. MRC and Lionsgate will release it November 27.  
  
The partnership between Johnson and Bergman spans 15 years, starting with the Joseph Gordon-Levitt-starrer _Brick_ , followed by _The Brothers Bloom_ with Adrien Brody, Rachel Weisz and Mark Ruffalo, and _Looper_ , which starred Gordon-Levitt and Bruce Willis. They then moved to event picture making with _Star Wars: The Last Jedi_ , which grossed $1.3 billion worldwide. They are crafting a new film series set within the Star Wars universe, and those plans remain on the boards. They said they were excited by T-Street, because it will give them the opportunity to work with artists they admire, with a company structure that makes it possible to offer equity stakes in hits they hatch. Their _Knives Out_ deal was entrepreneurial and they liked working with the MRC team enough to take their next longterm step with them.  
  
“There’s a rule we live and die by, that life is too short to work with jerks,” Johnson said. “This is an extension of that philosophy, as we had a great experience with Modi Wiczyk and the entire MRC team.”  
  
Said Bergman: “We think we can help them be a good supportive home for filmmakers in movies and television, who can share in the upside. We have the ability to finance movies and shows. Now, we just have to do the work.”  
  
There is no specific formula for the revenue sharing; it will be used selectively on a project by project basis. After a career spent crafting his own vehicles, Johnson said he was eager to broaden.  
  
“I always focused on directing my own stuff and never had the producing bug,” he said. “I’m excited to open things up and get the chance to work with talented people and learn from them. In a way, this is very much in the mode of how we’ve always worked, though _Star Wars_ was different for obvious reasons. But we’ve always thought like indie filmmakers, maintaining a degree of ownership and authorship over what we’ve done. This was a way to set up a space where we can make that happen for other filmmakers. We also looked over at what Kurt Cobain, Charlize Theron and Jennifer Todd have done with Springbok Productions and definitely found them as the model to use, with our own spin on it, of course.”  
  
MRC expects them to beef up both its feature and TV output for a company whose films have included _Baby Driver, Ted, Elysium_ and _Dark Tower_ , with TV shows that have included _House of Cards, Ozark_ and _Counterpart_.  
  
“We have had the privilege to work alongside Rian and Ram through the making of _Knives Out_. As skilled and talented as they are as filmmakers, they are even better people and that is what makes this partnership so exciting for us,” said MRC Film Co-Presidents Jonathan Golfman and Brye Adler and MRC Television President Elise Henderson. “We are aligned in our shared entrepreneurial spirit and this platform gives them the freedom to continue their thoughtful approach to building content and attracting like-minded partners. We look forward to keeping Mel’s Diner in business together for years to come.”  
  
Johnson and Bergman are repped by CAA, attorney Stephen Clark at Lichter Grossman Nichols Adler Feldman & Clark, and attorney Matthew Thompson at Sidley Austin. Carmen Carpenter from Evolution Media Capital also acted as an advisor on the deal on behalf of Johnson and Bergman.

* * *

"Blockbuster Entertainment hit with Potential Antitrust Lawsuit Claiming Blockbuster to be a Monopoly", _The Wall Street Journal_ , October 5, 2019  
  
News out of Washington has the rental and streaming behemoth Blockbuster Video, and their streaming service, Blockbuster Entertainment, firmly in their sights. The SEC and FCC have delivered a cease-and-desist order, proclaiming its intent to launch an antitrust lawsuit against the company, accusing it of being a monopoly because of its control of movie rentals and streaming content, the latter of which has "virtually all of Hollywood" in its library. Thus, coupled with its dominance of rental through brick-and-mortar stores, mail-order services, and vending machines, Blockbuster has "undue influence" in the home video and streaming video world.  
  
Blockbuster's response to the letter is that they are not technically a monopoly, stating how Amazon, YouTube and Movies Anywhere to buy movies and TV series digitally, premium cable packages still have a massive influence in video on demand, Facebook has Facebook Watch, the porn industry has their own distribution services, and faith-based production company and distributor PureFlix has its own streaming service. However, the Blockbuster response said, "we are perfectly willing to discuss matters with the federal government and find a solution that perfectly suits all of us."

* * *

"Springbok Sells Stake In Six Flags New Orleans," by Stewart Clarke, _Variety_ , October 12, 2019

Springbok Productions announced that its considerable equity stake in Six Flags New Orleans, which it has held since 2004, is being sold back to Six Flags' parent company, Six Flags Entertainment Corporation, for a cool $3 billion. This investment has returned considerably to Springbok over the past 15 years, and the company felt that it was time flip it and reap the reward.

"We could not be prouder of our time involved with Six Flags New Orleans," Springbok CEO Jennifer Todd said in a prepared statement. During the past 15 years, we helped turn around the fortunes of one of Six Flags' struggling properties and made it a landmark tourism stop for the Greater New Orleans area and among the most profitable parks in Six Flags' portfolio. Under our watch, attendance has increased sevenfold, and revenues have likewise increased. We know that we return full control of the park to the company, and that it will be in great hands."  
  
Springbok's involvement in the park coincided with the massive devastation of New Orleans as a result of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, which included massive flooding of the park and the need for heavy, intense restoration work. Springbok personally took charge in that, to get the park on its feet again and keep it as part of its 75-year lease with the city. The efforts paid off, and Six Flags New Orleans reopened in time for the 2007 season, after which, people noted that it seemed like a very different park, made far more attractive to crowds and to entice bigger crowds to it. As a result, many consider that without Springbok's involvement, Six Flags may have chosen to abandon the property instead after the storm.

* * *

"Banijay Close to Securing $2.2 Billion Deal for Endemol Shine," by Stewart Clarke and Elsa Keslassy, _Variety_ , October 22, 2019  
  
Banijay Group is on the verge of sealing a deal for production and distribution powerhouse Endemol Shine, sources tell _Variety_.  
  
Vivendi-backed Banijay and Endemol Shine’s joint owners, Fox Corporation and Apollo, are understood to have scheduled a meeting for Thursday after talks accelerated in recent days, with Banijay now on the brink of finally closing a deal for a big asset it has been chasing.  
  
Numerous industry players have taken a look at Endemol Shine, a huge production and content sales operation that has shows including _Black Mirror_ , _Hell's Kitchen_ , _Kitchen Nightmares_ and _Big Brother_ in its deep catalogue. Eighteen months of on-and-off talks with various suitors have so far failed to reach a deal. All3Media dropped out of negotiations in recent weeks.  
  
A source with knowledge of the situation told _Variety_ that the purchase price of the proposed Banijay deal will be in the region of €2 billion ($2.2 billion). The source said Vivendi’s backing has been key to moving a deal forward. Another industry sources said that, out of the €2 billion, €1.75 billion would cover Endemol Shine’s debt, meaning that Banijay would be acquiring Endemol Shine’s catalogue and production companies for something in the range of €250 million.  
  
Combining Banijay and Endemol Shine would create the largest TV producer-distributor in the market outside of the Hollywood studios and U.S. players. The merged company would have production companies on both sides of the Atlantic, a huge catalogue and sizable sales arms. There would be some overlap on the distribution side, however, and streamlining the sales operations would result in possibly major job cuts.  
  
Banijay had been in advanced talks with Endemol Shine’s owners before, without a deal being finalized, but sources suggested that this time an agreement seems likely.  
  
It would bring to an end a protracted sale process that has seen the likes of ITV, Fremantle, Endeavor Content and Sony among the numerous players that reportedly kicked the tires of a possible purchase.  
  
Britain’s _Daily Telegraph_ was the first to report the latest news on the potential sale.

* * *

"Nena Rodrigue To Run Television For Rian Johnson & Ram Bergman's T-Street," by Nellie Andreeva, _Deadline Hollywood_ , October 25, 2019  
  
Veteran TV creative executive Nena Rodrigue has been named President of Television for T-Street Productions, the independent studio launched recently by writer/director Rian Johnson and producer Ram Bergman with the financial backing of Valence Media, which holds a minority equity stake in the company, and a first-look film and TV deal at Valence’s MRC.  
  
Rodrigue will have creative oversight of all television projects for the studio. She most recently served as EVP of Programming and Production for BBC America, overseeing original scripted programming at the network following its acquisition by AMC Networks. She commissioned and worked on _Killing Eve_ and _Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency._ Rodrigue left BBC America a year ago when the programming operations for all AMC entertainment networks were consolidated under Sarah Barnett.  
  
Prior to BBC America, Rodrigue was SVP of Programming and Production for AMC Networks’ Sundance TV, overseeing development and production of series such as _Rectify, The Returned, The Honourable Woman_ , and Danny Boyle’s _Babylon._ While at Sundance TV, Rodrigue supported the establishment of Sundance Episodic Story Lab, which began in 2013 as a way to foster the next generation of TV creators.  
  
Before Sundance TV, she had an overall deal at Touchstone Television/ABC Studios and held development and production roles for Dick Wolf’s Wolf Films, Imagine Television, Witt-Thomas Productions (later purchased and folded into Springbok with Paul Junger Witt and Tony Thomas executives at Springbok's TV division), and in Fox’s alternative TV division.  
  
“We are super excited to have Nena join our team,” said Johnson and Bergman. “Her proven track record overseeing high-quality content, keen eye for artistic vision, and support for budding creators will help T-Street as we continue to grow the company.”  
  
Through T-Street, Johnson and Bergman recently completed their fifth film together, the upcoming _Knives Out_ , which also hails from MRC Film and Lionsgate and is set to release on November 27. Its ensemble cast includes Daniel Craig, Chris Evans, Ana de Armas, Jamie Lee Curtis, Toni Colette, Don Johnson, Michael Shannon, LaKeith Stanfield, Katherine Langford, Jaeden Martell and Christopher Plummer.

* * *

"Banijay Seals $2.2 Billion Deal for Endemol Shine, Paving Way for Huge New Global Player," by Stewart Clarke and Elsa Keslassy, _Variety_ , October 26, 2019  
  
France-based Banijay Group has sealed a $2.2 billion deal for Endemol Shine, in a move that will create a new pecking order in the international TV business.  
  
The merged entity will be the largest non-U.S. player in the market, with a bigger catalogue than the main UK players, BBC Studios and ITV Studios. Banijay is owned by company chairman Stephane Courbit’s LOV Group and an arm of the Italian conglomerate De Agostini, and Vivendi.  
  
The acquisition needs antitrust approval. Banijay is understood to be confident the deal will get past regulators. The deal will be financed through a capital increase at Banijay Group and debt financing, including a full refinancing of Banijay and Endemol Shine’s existing debt, supported by Deutsche Bank, Natixis and Société Générale. Banijay’s and Endemol Shine’s respective debt was approximately $486 million and $1.83 billion as of December 2018.  
  
The combined group will be held by LDH (67.1%) ,which comprises Financière LOV, De Agostini and Fimalac, the investment company of Marc Ladreit de Lacharrière, and French media giant Vivendi (32.9%).  
  
Together, Banijay and Endemol Shine have interests in more than 100 production companies, including Kudos, Charlie Brooker’s House of Tomorrow, and Wiedeman and Berg Television on the Endemol Shine side. The likes of Bunim/Murray, RDF and Yellow Bird are in the Banijay stable. In its release announcing the deal, Banijay said the “total pro-forma revenue of the combined group is expected to be approximately €3 billion [$3.3 billion] for the year ending December 31st, 2019.”  
  
“Endemol Shine brings an incredible array of industry-leading talent, globally renowned brands and high-quality creative content. Combining the resources of these two companies will instantly strengthen our position in the global market, and our capabilities across genres will further define us as a go-to provider of first class IP worldwide,” said Marco Bassetti, CEO of Banijay.  
  
“Welcoming the Endemol Shine brands and talents to our existing business will signal enhanced opportunities in the marketplace, and we are all excited by what the future holds for the combined entity,” Bassetti said.  
  
Sophie Turner Laing, the CEO of Endemol Shine Group, said: “This deal takes us into a whole new and exciting chapter and into a new enhanced global content house with many opportunities ahead.  
  
“At Endemol Shine, we have continually inspired and entertained audiences around the world, a testament to every single person across the Group,” Turner Laing said.  
  
Banijay chairman Courbit previously worked at Endemol (before its merger with Shine), as did CEO Marco Bassetti, and the company has long courted Endemol Shine. Numerous other big hitters took a look at the Fox Corporation- and Apollo-owned producer and distributor, but they either declined to put forward a bid or dropped out of the running, put off by Endemol Shine’s original reported asking price of $4 billion and its hefty debt load. Banijay ultimately closed a deal after an 18-month-long sale process.  
  
Endemol Shine has a head count of more than 4,000. For staff who survived the post-merger cull when Endemol and Shine merged in 2014, it’s Groundhog Day. Sales and back office functions are expected to be the area of greatest overlap in the new Banijay-Endemol Shine entity and the most obvious targets for cost cuts. Cathy Payne, boss of distribution business Endemol Shine Intl., said she was leaving shortly before the Banijay deal was announced.  
  
Banijay posted revenues of €826.6 million ($917.5 million) for the year to end-2018 and an operating profit of €72.8 million ($80.8 million). Endemol Shine posted revenues in the region of €1.8 billion to €1.9 billion ($2 billion to $2.1 billion) in recent years.  
  
The combined Banijay and Endemol Shine catalogue approaches 90,000 hours of content, bigger than that of the BBC’s sales arm. Key Banijay titles include dramas _V_ _ersailles_ and _The Inbetweeners,_ and, in unscripted, _Wife Swap_. Endemol has _Big Brother_ , _Hell's Kitchen_ , _Kitchen Nightmares_ and _MasterChef_ among its big-ticket unscripted titles, and _Black Mirror_ and _Peaky Blinders_ on the drama side.

* * *

"Robert Evans Dead: _Chinatown_ Producer and Paramount/Springbok Chief, Dies at 89," by Richard Natale and Carmel Dagan, _Variety_ , October 28, 2019  
  
Robert Evans, the Paramount and Springbok executive who produced _Chinatown_ and _Urban Cowboy_ , and whose life became as melodramatic and jaw-dropping as any of his films, died on Saturday night. He was 89.  
  
Even though Hollywood history is filled with colorful characters, few can match the tale of Evans, whose life would seem far-fetched if it were fiction. With his matinee-idol looks, but little acting talent, Evans was given starring roles in a few movies and then, with no studio experience, was handed the production reins at Paramount in the 1960s. When he left the exec ranks, his first film as a producer was the classic _Chinatown_ , and he followed with other hits, like _Marathon Man_ and _Urban Cowboy_. Eventually, his distinctive look and speaking style turned him into a cult figure, and he had the distinction of being the only film executive who starred in his own animated TV series.  
  
His life was a continuous roller-coaster. Amid the successes, Ali MacGraw left him for Steve McQueen, her co-star in the 1972 _The Getaway_ , a love triangle that got huge media attention. (MacGraw was the third of Evans’ seven wives.) In 1980, Evans was arrested for cocaine possession and a few years later, was involved in an even bigger scandal: the murder of would-be Hollywood player Roy Radin during the production of _The Cotton Club._ Due to his association with Radin, Evans became a material witness in the execution-style slaying, though no proof of Evans’ knowledge of or connection to the murder was ever established.  
  
Drug dependency and the studios’ changing corporate culture plagued Evans’ later career. When he eventually resurfaced at Paramount in the ’90s, his production track record was mostly undistinguished ( _The Saint_ , _Sliver_ ). He seemed to have bottomed out, until Springbok Productions hired him to be an executive, where he rebounded yet again. But even if that hadn't happened, by then his larger-than-life persona was already the stuff of Hollywood legend. Evans parodied himself in the film _Burn, Hollywood, Burn_ (1998), and Dustin Hoffman, a longtime friend, borrowed liberally from Evans in creating the character of an outrageous producer in the 1997 satire _Wag the Dog_ , earning an Oscar nomination in the process.  
  
Evans was born Robert Shapera in New York. Before the age of 18, he had worked on more than 300 radio shows and the occasional TV show and play. A collapsed lung forced him to recuperate for a year, and when he returned, he realized he’d lost his momentum. He worked his charms as a salesman at the sportswear firm Evan-Picone, co-founded by his brother Charles.  
  
Several years later, however, his show business career was revived: In the perhaps apocryphal tale, he was spotted by the pool of the Beverly Hills Hotel with actress Norma Shearer, who asked him to play her deceased husband, the legendary MGM exec Irving Thalberg, in the film _Man of a Thousand Faces_. Darryl Zanuck then cast him as a bullfighter in the 1957 version of Ernest Hemingway’s _The Sun Also Rises_. The other actors pleaded with Zanuck to replace Evans, but Zanuck sent a telegram, saying, “The kid stays in the picture,” which provided the title for his eventual autobiography. Evans’ good looks carried him only so far, however. His stiff onscreen presence in those movies and in _The Fiend Who Walked the West_ (1958) and _The Best of Everything_ (1959) did not warm the hearts of reviewers, however, and he returned to the garment industry.  
  
After Evan-Picone was sold to Revlon (netting Evans $2 million, according to some sources), he decided to return to the industry in a producing capacity. He purchased the rights to a novel, _The Detective_. _New York Times_ reporter Peter Bart chronicled Evans’ tale in an article that caught the attention of Fox executives Richard Zanuck and David Brown, who put him in charge of such projects as _Achilles Force_ (which was never made) and _The Detective_ , starring Frank Sinatra. But his stay at Fox was brief.  
  
He befriended and charmed Charles Bluhdorn of Gulf & Western, which owned Paramount Pictures. The born salesman recognized another born salesman when he met him. In 1966 Bluhdorn controversially named the neophyte Evans VP in charge of production. By 1969 he was exec VP of worldwide production.  
  
Evans’ early Paramount tenure included such monumental flops as _Paint Your Wagon_ and _Darling Lili_ , which were Bluhdorn’s pet projects. Evans oversaw disappointments including _Catch-22_ and the 1974 _The Great Gatsby_.  
  
But they were more than offset by Evans’ successes, starting with _Rosemary’s Baby_ , _Romeo and Juliet,_ _Goodbye, Columbus_ , _Love Story_ and _The Godfather_ films. The degree to which he personally deserved credit for any of these has always been debated, and even Evans claimed that some of the best decisions made during his tenure, particularly with respect to _The Godfather_ , were arrived at over his objections.  
  
Evans hired Bart at Paramount; Bart eventually joined _Variety_ in 1989, and profiled Evans in his 2011 book _Infamous Players: A Tale of Movies, the Mob, (and Sex)_.  
  
As a studio ambassador Evans was a success. His attention to day-to-day production, however, soon deteriorated, exacerbated by his public divorce from MacGraw and growing cocaine dependency. He clashed openly with Francis Ford Coppola on _The Godfather_ (and was slighted by Coppola when he accepted his screenplay Oscar). After Barry Diller was brought in over him in 1974, Evans eased into a producing deal. His first crucible was _Chinatown_ , a tempestuous but ultimately successful enterprise that was nominated for 11 Oscars.  
  
After that, Evans started to slowly go downhill even as a producer. Thriller _Marathon Man_ , starring Dustin Hoffman, was a hit in 1976, and 1977’s _Black Sunday_ did OK, but did not live up to expectations. His tennis drama _Players_ (starring MacGraw) was a flop, and neither _Urban Cowboy_ nor _Popeye_ (both 1980) were big enough hits to restore his golden-boy reputation.  
  
In 1980, at age 50, he was convicted of cocaine possession, during a period when widespread drug use was plaguing the industry and tarnishing its reputation nationally. Evans’ Rat Pack-style behavior was by then quickly falling out of fashion in an increasingly buttoned-down corporate town.  
  
A personal dream, _The Cotton Club_ , became a never-ending nightmare, taking up several years of Evans’ life and almost $50 million. The hybrid of music and gangsters found Evans begging Coppola to take over the reins. The results were uneven, but artistically interesting; the production was tied to underworld money and, in attempting to raise more funds for the film, Evans became involved with Radin, whose murder seemed to be a case of life imitating art. The scandal cast a large shadow over Evans that he never successfully overcame. _The Cotton Club_ , released by Orion Pictures in 1984, went down in flames.  
  
Evans planned to make an acting comeback in 1985 in _The Two Jakes_ , a sequel to _Chinatown_ to be directed by Robert Towne (who wrote the original). But he had not grown as an actor and, soon after production began, Evans was fired. The film was shut down, only to be revived in 1990 under the direction of Jack Nicholson, who co-starred with Harvey Keitel. Evans was distanced from the sequel, which was a failure.  
  
He returned to Paramount in the early ’90s as a producer, but the salacious _Sliver_ (1993) and _Jade_ (1995) were both significant failures. The comic-book-like _The Phantom_ (1996) also sank without a trace. In 1997 Evans produced _The Saint_ , based on the long-running TV espionage-adventure series. He’d been nurturing the project for several years and hoped the film would be the first entry in a franchise. But the movie, starring Val Kilmer, didn’t turn out as well as expected and the sequels never came to pass.  
  
His private life once again made the headlines when Evans’ name was mentioned among the customers for Hollywood madam Heidi Fleiss’ service. An entire chapter on his sexual habits was detailed in the salacious and hyperbolic book _You’ll Never Make Love in This Town Again_. Evans had already published a frank memoir of his life, 1994’s _The Kid Stays in the Picture_ , admitting some of his virtues and his vices.  
  
In 1998 Evans suffered a stroke that left him paralyzed on one side and unable to speak, but he eventually made a full recovery after much therapy.  
  
He made a triumphant return in some sense with the 2002 documentary adaptation of _The Kid Stays in the Picture_ , directed by Nanette Burstein and Brett Morgen, in which Evans idiosyncratically discussed his life.  
  
Taking advantage of the increased exposure, he exec produced _Kid Notorious_ , a 2003 animated series based on his unique persona for Comedy Central. The same year he produced the successful romantic comedy _How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days_.  
  
In 2004, Springbok Productions hired him as an executive, mainly to help with developing film projects, especially those being distributed by Paramount. Among the Springbok/Paramount projects that Evans received executive producer credit for are _The Curious Case of Benjamin Button_ , _Shutter Island_ , _Young Adult, The Wolf of Wall Street,_ _Interstellar_ , _Inuyasha_ , _The Hateful Eight_ , and the recent Elton John fantasy musical _Rocketman_.  
  
Even with his Springbok duties, Evans maintained an office on the Paramount Pictures lot, and continued to develop projects outside of Springbok, though none came to fruition: He had long planned a movie based on the renegade car builder John DeLorean, written by James Toback to be produced with Brett Ratner; he also had in development a sci-fi movie set in a futuristic Manhattan and based on a graphic novel, _NYC2123_ ; _Whip Smart_ , the story of a young dominatrix to be directed by Catherine Hardwicke; and a superhero film, _Foreverman_ , based on an original character created by Stan Lee and to be produced with Lee.  
  
He was married and divorced seven times, first to actress Sharon Hugueny, then to actress Camilla Sparv and, after his divorce from MacGraw, to former Miss America Phyllis George. His brief 1998 marriage to actress Catherine Oxenberg was annulled. Thereafter he was married to Leslie Ann Woodward and Victoria White.  
  
He and MacGraw had a son, Josh, an actor and director. Survivors also include a grandson.

* * *

"Studio Chief Summit: All 7 Top Film Executives, One Room, Nothing Off-Limits (and No Easy Answers)," by Matthew Belloni, _The Hollywood Reporter_ , October 30, 2019  
  
 _For the first time, Warner Bros. Toby Emmerich, Paramount's Jim Gianopulos, Disney's Meryl Poster, Universal's Donna Langley, Sony's Tom Rothman, Springbok's Jennifer Todd and Blockbuster Entertainment's Scott Stuber gather to debate streaming ratings, movie star value, China censorship, onscreen violence and the future of a fraught movie business._  
  
By most accounts, the traditional film business is under siege. Blockbuster Entertainment has commodified the moviegoing experience, placing an increasing premium on the "theatricality" of studio product — meaning films that people will actually pay money to see in theaters. That, in turn, has created a Dickensian economy of the haves (pre-branded gotta-see blockbusters, dominated by Disney) and the have-nots (with exceptions, the rest of studio slates, which fight for audience scraps every weekend). By some estimates, the "Big Six" studios, which shrank to five this year with Disney's absorption of 20th Century Fox, will atrophy even further in the next five years, replaced by Blockbuster— perhaps giving new life to traditional studios not as theatrical distributors but as verdant farms for streaming content. Where does that leave the people who actually make the films? At this fraught moment, _The Hollywood Reporter_ gathered for the first time the seven executives who now run the "majors": the Big Five, the massive production company and conglomerate Springbok Productions (already having grown to a size comparable to the majors) plus Blockbuster, which releases many more films per year than its traditional rivals. What's notable is how intertwined these executives are. Meryl Poster, 55, chief creative officer and co-chairman of Walt Disney Studios, formerly ran Miramax Films, becoming known as the only woman that could say no to Harvey Weinstein. Warner Bros. film chairman Toby Emmerich, 56, once led sister label New Line Cinema, which is still under the main control of founder Robert Shaye and his longtime partner Michael Lynne. New Line is where current Universal filmed entertainment group chairman Donna Langley, 51, got her start, and for years at Universal she worked alongside Scott Stuber, 50, who now heads film for Blockbuster Entertainment, under the leadership of content officer Ted Sarandos. Paramount chairman and CEO Jim Gianopulos, 67, once ran the Fox studio alongside Tom Rothman, 64, who now serves as chairman of Sony's Motion Picture Group, under the leadership of Amy Pascal, who has held her position since 1996, and co-CEO Tony Vinciquerra. They joined Springbok CEO Jennifer Todd, 50, for a candid conversation Oct. 14 that delved into everything from Blockbuster Entertainment viewership transparency (or lack thereof) to China censorship to on-screen violence and the changing economics of a business in transition. The discussion has been edited here for length and clarity.  
  
 _Where do most bad movies go wrong these days?_  
  
MERYL POSTER: It's the screenplay. As they say, if it's not on the page it's not on the stage. We have found issues with screenplays where we were forced to move on the film because of availability of stars.  
  
JIM GIANOPULOS: Or a [release] date.  
  
POSTER: This is past blaming marketing, right?  
  
ALL: ( _Laughter_.)  
  
TOBY EMMERICH: But of course there are good movies that don't work. And bad movies that are hits.  
  
 _Fewer now, though. Unlike for most of Hollywood history, it's really hard to release a bad movie and have it be successful. Do you agree?_  
  
DONNA LANGLEY: Absolutely.  
  
GIANOPULOS: By Thursday evening, you know the verdict. And so does everyone else. Social media lights up. It becomes an audience consensus. Right or wrong. Of course, all of us now work to really push ad buys and pressure exhibitors to get behind films if they underperform initially. Sometimes it moves the needle enough, other times, no matter what you do, it's still DOA.  
  
LANGLEY: Five or 10 years ago, if it was a visual effects movie and it had a certain amount of spectacle, then it was anticipated it would do really well in certain parts of the world. That bar is now really high. Comedy could be, "We'll just slap it together, production values don't have to be that high." And I just don't think that's the case anymore.  
  
TOM ROTHMAN: Nowadays, good movies aren't good enough. I am not sure you ever really got away with a movie that genuinely was a significant disappointment. But it certainly used to be that if you made a good movie, it was OK [financially]. And I don't think those of us still in the theatrical business can settle for good anymore.  
  
EMMERICH: Also the floor has dropped. If you have a big movie with big stars, you can miss now and open to single digits.  
  
POSTER: There is a finite amount of leisure time. So when the number of films available increases very dramatically … _Scott_ —  
  
SCOTT STUBER: ( _Laughs_.)  
  
EMMERICH: _Jen_ …  
  
JENNIFER TODD: Also … _Scott_ …  
  
STUBER: And _Meryl_ soon …  
  
POSTER: … That amount of leisure time impacts choices.  
  
GIANOPULOS: You are also working without a net. It used to be that you had this ancillary business, particularly in the heyday of [home] video, where you were filling a pipeline. There was always some amount of money that you could look to. And that's not the same anymore.  
  
ROTHMAN: I wouldn't even say that the floor is low. I would say there is no floor. On the other hand, the ceiling is higher than it's ever been. Big hits are bigger. And big misses are bigger.  
  
 _People look at the Disney strategy as what's working: releasing a smaller number of pre-branded, franchise movies. But Disney has had a lot of success remaking the library catalog. Meryl, at what point does that end? Or are we going to see the_ Rescuers Down Under _live-action remake?_  
  
POSTER: There is no question that we, at some point, are going to run out of the kinds of films like _Aladdin_ or _Lion King_. We have taken a step past that now, so _Maleficent_ is a step away from _Sleeping Beauty_ , _Christopher Robin_ is a sequel to the original Winnie the Pooh stories and not a remake, and _Cruella_ (2021) is a step away from _101 Dalmatians_. But there is no question it's a finite universe. And besides, it's not this cynical, hollow cash-grab people like to accuse us and Springbok of doing. We do this because we care about the films, want to give them to a new generation, and also flesh out the stories. After all, if the vast majority of people like our work, we must be doing something right.  
  
TODD: But don't worry, you won't be seeing things like _Lady and the Tramp_ redone.  
  
ROTHMAN: Thank God for small favors.  
  
 _Scott, you are the elephant in the room, so to speak._  
  
STUBER: Thank you for that. Glad I have been working out recently.  
  
 _You recently said that if Blockbuster spends $60 million on a movie, to be successful it should be watched by 30 million accounts. That's the first time I have heard you talk about the success metric for a Blockbuster film. Does that formula apply across the board?_  
  
STUBER: No. Each film, like for all of us, the P&Ls are different. Having been on both sides — the theatrical business and now streaming — there is so much out there for the consumer that we are fighting for time. The assumption is that it's easier [at Blockbuster] because I don't [have box office pressure]. But we have our own tracking. We have our own anxiety. We have our own opening weekend. That was a rough estimate, but different things take different marketing aspects. Take a look at films like _The Perfection_ , the Ted Bundy film _Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile_ , or the soon-to-be-released _Dolemite Is My Name_ and _Marriage Story_. We may have less restrictions compared to theaters, but we still are subject to MPAA guidelines for ratings, for example.  
  
 _So what do you look at on Monday morning after a big film debuts on the service?_  
  
STUBER: We value over a month, basically. We look at 28 days and because we can see where things are opportunistic, we can market toward it. We can market in the second and third weeks as well. We greenlight off of X money and how much we are going to spend. And we hope that _this_ many people watch in that 28 days. And that's our success rate metric.  
  
 _Take a film like_ The Irishman _. That's been gestating for a long time, it was at several different studios, and you took it on to release immediately on the streaming service after Paramount does three weeks in the theaters starting November 1 for about $150 million. It's three and a half hours long. What is the success metric for that film?_  
  
STUBER: There are a lot of variables. When I took the job [in 2017], I was building a new studio. We have no IP, we have no library, we can't remake things. We don't have the great cache that Meryl has over there. So you have to say, what is your opportunity? And your opportunity is filmmakers. For us to get Marty [Scorsese] at Blockbuster was a big thing. It was a big win. So that was one thing. And then the economics. We have enough subscribers that we think the movie can deliver on. Thankfully he over-delivered.  
  
 _Jim, you are smiling. You effectively gave that film up by cutting out the Blu-ray market and only a limited time at the box office._  
  
GIANOPULOS: Yeah. Well, before my time, but nevertheless. It was very ambitious for a studio to take on a project like that. There is a different perception of the economics. For us, at that level, for a period drama — or for anyone, I would submit — it was ambitious. And it was perhaps too ambitious.  
  
EMMERICH: That's where the consumer wins. I don't think any of the studios could make that movie at that cost at that length and come out alive.  
  
GIANOPULOS: Right.  
  
EMMERICH: But it works for Blockbuster for the reason that Scott said.  
  
 _As people who have spent your careers in the theatrical movie business, doesn't it bum you out that you can't make_ The Irishman _?_  
  
LANGLEY: You know, it actually doesn't. It would bum me out if no one made the movie.  
  
POSTER: That's right.  
  
LANGLEY: That's what's really exciting about our entire ecosystem right now, even though it is giving us the headaches and sleepless nights. It's never been a better time for filmmakers and storytelling and for things to find their way into the world that were getting squeezed over the last five or six years or even longer.  
  
EMMERICH: The only difference for us, and maybe for the average consumer — I'll bet everyone at this table wants to see _The Irishman_ in a theater and will turn out to see it during the three-week period.  
  
LANGLEY: Yeah.  
  
EMMERICH: And it will be available, to some extent. Or we'll get invited to Scott's house.  
  
STUBER: You're all invited. ( _Laughs_.)  
  
 _Jen, Springbok has really built itself up in the past 20 years as Hollywood's biggest rising success, and you've established that in a career in different branches of the entertainment industry, but especially film. What's your secret?_  
  
TODD: It certainly helps that we're always passionate about the projects we greenlight, and creative passion honestly matters more than box office or awards success. That's why for every _Wolf of Wall Street_ or _Bohemian Rhapsody_ , there are things like _Dark Places_ or _Brain on Fire._ Does it feel nice to know that we have quite a seat at the table? Yes. But, it's the journey and not the destination for us. Our adoption of the Pixar "brain trust meetings" method certainly has helped us nurture our projects to become the best they can be. That's why so many of the best actors, writers, directors and producers have worked with us, because we're all part of the same journey. Having strong star power and strong IP are certainly nice, of course.  
  
 _Is there is any movie star that is as important as strong IP?_  
  
ROTHMAN: Yeah, I think there are lots of movie stars. It's one of the great myths propagated out there that movie stars don't matter. I would say movie stars in the right role with the right property matter more than ever before.  
  
 _So you would trade the Spider-Man property for every Leo DiCaprio movie for the rest of his career?_  
  
ALL: ( _Laughter_.)  
  
ROTHMAN: I'd love to have both.  
  
EMMERICH: Who is he negotiating with?  
  
ROTHMAN: Well, I can tell you this. The event nature of having Leo and Brad [Pitt] and Margot [Robbie] in [Sony's] _Once Upon a Time in Hollywood_ was essential. You had to make a great movie … but that movie was not based on any IP at all. That is a pure original. Came out of the imagination and the headspace of one individual. Because even Disney will run out of animated movies to remake. And we have to be careful not to narrow our audience, not to think that there isn't room for originality. I think there is. In the pursuit of that, movie stars are tremendously valuable.  
  
EMMERICH: The thing that we all sit around talking about is "theatricality." IP and movie stars are two huge ingredients. You have to have one or the other. It's even better if you have both.  
  
 _Meryl and Tom, you're also known for the partnership regarding Spider-Man. What was the one thing above all else that makes sure you have Marvel producing the next Sony installment?_  
  
POSTER: The fan base, which is important to all of us, seemed to really respond to what Tom and his folks have done before with our people. They like the fact that the Marvel Cinematic Universe and Kevin Feige were involved [in the two Spider-Man films]. We heard feedback out there that suggested that joining forces once again was probably really a good idea.  
  
 _Will this partnership continue after the trilogy? Tom, you've shown you can do Spider-Man without Marvel on the animated film_ Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse _._  
  
ROTHMAN: Yes, we have. But I agree with my distinguished colleague. This is a classic win-win-win. A win for Sony, a win for Disney, a win for the fans.  
  
POSTER: I agree with that.  
  
 _Blockbuster says it does everything to best serve the customer. But one thing that customers like is to know which movies are hits and which movies aren't. And Blockbuster has been adamant about not releasing comprehensive viewership numbers. Scott, why will Blockbuster not do that if it better serves the customer?_  
  
STUBER: We tell all the filmmakers, so the filmmakers have —  
  
 _But that's not the same thing —_  
  
STUBER: I understand. Let me finish. I also think part of it is just the aspirational way that Ted [Sarandos] and Cindy [Holland] built the TV side, which Jen understands, coming from network TV. It was for television creators to get out of ratings and Standards and Practices and actually free up their narrative form so that they could tell stories that weren't [influenced] night after night by those numbers. So the methodology was right. And now, as we have grown … we are used to it.  
  
TODD: Mm-hmm...  
  
STUBER: We are definitely, as a company, moving more … and you will see more [viewership transparency]. We do it in some of our earnings reports, and we are going to be doing it more and more because that filmmaker and that actor and that actress want to know that their movie got out there globally in a big way.  
  
 _For the rest of you, why is it important to release box office numbers?_  
  
LANGLEY: There are a number of reasons why it's helpful. It is helpful as an industry measure. It's helpful to keep us all honest. It's helpful for the creative talent for that narrative to be out there.  
  
ROTHMAN: I can't stand it.  
  
LANGLEY: I don't love it either.  
  
GIANOPULOS: By the way, it's not our choice.  
  
ROTHMAN: If you [in the media] would like to stop reporting on it, I would be very happy to stop reading about it. It reinforces [the perception] that popularity and quality go hand in hand. We are guilty too because we feed it when it suits us.  
  
TODD: It takes you back to network television [and] the overnight ratings. When viewing habits had changed and these shows were being watched globally and were hugely popular, they were being given a report card every morning that they were DOA. Which then creates perception, and it sent a lot of shows to an early graveyard.  
  
ROTHMAN: When we dated the Quentin [Tarantino]/Springbok movie, I knew a year in advance, because it was the second week of _Lion King_ , that absolutely positively that movie would not [open at] No. 1. And the conversation we had with the filmmakers was "Even if we get your biggest opening ever, I promise you will not be No. 1. But I also promise you it's a great day for the movie. And we need to ignore that and put the movie on what's a good date for it."  
  
EMMERICH: We all work for public companies. Our slates will be judged on a quarterly and an annual basis. But the short-term focus on [box office] can often not give your movie a chance. The platform release has kind of gone away, which was another way to give films a chance.  
  
GIANOPULOS: One of the things we have to manage is expectations. The press says it's going to open to $50 million. And you open to $43 million and it's a disappointment. _We_ never said it was going to open to 50!  
  
 _Meryl, I remember when_ American Idol _was No. 1 for many years in a row and its audience was 30 million viewers a night. The president of NBC at the time, I believe it was Jeff Zucker, said, "Someday it will not be cool to watch_ American Idol _." Do you think about when that day comes for the Marvel or Lucasfilm movies?_  
  
POSTER: The answer is no. If the film has a compelling storyline, if it has heart and humor, two things that I insist on, and it's terrifically well executed, I think there is an audience. Star Wars has always been an evergreen property that is beloved, and the MCU is on the way to becoming that. But who knows?  
  
 _25 hits in a row for Marvel is an unprecedented streak. The same with the fact that under Disney's stewardship, the Star Wars prequels and the current era have also been that big, an unbroken chain, including if you go back to the original trilogy._  
  
POSTER: It is long. But Kevin Feige is working away. He will be making three or four a year. And so is Kathleen Kennedy at Lucasfilm in working over the film and TV properties, with something coming out in some capacity every year. And they are very different from one another, so we'll see.  
  
GIANOPULOS: We started to notice with _Avengers_ it was running out of steam.  
  
ALL: ( _Laughter_.)  
  
EMMERICH: Especially the second one.  
  
STUBER: What people don't give comic books credit for, is that for a giant group of us, they are literature. They are like _To Kill a Mockingbird_.  
  
ROTHMAN: They are not _To Kill a Mockingbird_. I am sorry.  
  
ALL: ( _Laughter_.)  
  
ROTHMAN: As a former English teacher … I promised I wouldn't say anything, but I have to say something now.  
  
STUBER: I have confused the [Fox] Searchlight Tom with the Sony Tom. And Kevin, who I have known for a long time, takes them deeply seriously and understands the fan base and the nuance of those characters.  
  
 _Toby, in Toronto at the premiere of_ Joker, _one thing you mentioned stuck with me. You said, "We wanted to do something that we knew Marvel and Disney could never do." Is that how you approach the DC library?_  
  
EMMERICH: The impetus behind making _Joker_ really came from Todd [Phillips]. But one of the advantages of being Warner Bros. and having DC is that we don't feel that all the movies have to be — not that Disney's films are — but we don't feel our films have to be of the same tone or in a connected universe. We thought making an R-rated supervillain origin story was a cool idea. We didn't see [the success] coming at this level when we greenlit the film.  
  
 _There was criticism of the realistic violence in_ Joker _, and yet it was a $900 million hit._  
  
EMMERICH: There were a lot of misunderstandings around the history of the tragic shooting in Aurora, [Colorado, in 2012,] which happened at a Batman film. And we were certainly supersensitive to it [and the tragedy for the victims and their loved ones]. But that film and that shooting had no connection in any way to the Joker character. So we had to judge our film on its own merits. A lot of the social media comments around the film were by people who hadn't seen the film and didn't know what it was. We looked at the film really closely and did feel that it was a great film. That it was a piece of art. And we didn't think it would inspire violence. We took it to Venice, where it won the Golden Lion. And we felt comfortable releasing the film.  
  
 _Jim and Tom, you were at Fox 20 years ago when_ Fight Club _came out. There was criticism of the violence in that movie as it happened soon after Columbine. I wonder what would have happened if it had been released in the social media age?_  
  
ROTHMAN: There has always been a lot of talk about pop culture impact from films. The mere fact that everybody is on Facebook now doesn't really change that that much. To do our jobs, you've got to be a strong First Amendment advocate.  
  
EMMERICH: Right.  
  
ROTHMAN: But you do make moral judgments. I certainly have.  
  
GIANOPULOS: Given the extent of gun violence in our society, there is a heightened sensitivity. There is a certain responsibility and a line. We have to define that line for our companies and for our filmmakers.  
  
ROTHMAN: But you can't abdicate responsibility either.  
  
 _As an industry, we're at a stalemate where traditional studios are releasing films in theaters and three months later they go to home video. Blockbuster is direct to home video, at times with a theatrical component, but except for certain exceptions like_ The Irishman, _the major theater chains refuse to play those movies. When is the stalemate going to end?_  
  
STUBER: We all have to get to a place where there is opportunity and choice and more movies. It's not always one size fits all. We have to be cognizant of everyone's businesses and protect them.  
  
 _Meryl, Donna and Toby, do you anticipate that changing the company position on film windows?_  
  
LANGLEY: I can't speak to that. But we all know that it's a nonstarter for the companies to have the conversation with exhibition. Our agendas are not aligned at all. And ultimately, it might be the consumer, the audience that speaks. Particularly as more content is released there. The business model may just shift to such a degree that it winds up becoming so obvious that something has to change.  
  
POSTER: We reevaluate everything all the time, but we are committed to the theatrical window and that model has worked for us. I agree that one size doesn't fit all. I agree also that consumers would like every film available on every medium immediately.  
  
 _In five or 10 years, will I be able to pay $100 and watch_ Avengers 10 _on Blockbuster Entertainment the weekend it's in theaters?_  
  
POSTER: Right now, no. I can't predict five or 10 years from now.  
  
 _Jim, you are now making movies specifically for Blockbuster-_  
  
GIANOPULOS: Every chance we get. ( _Laughs_.)  
  
 _But when you're figuring out what is a Paramount release and what is for Blockbuster, how does it not turn into an "A"- and "B"-level movie determination?_  
  
GIANOPULOS: It's a choice you make as you develop. We develop 10 or 12 properties for every movie we make. There are lots of properties where you get to a point where you talk about theatricality and you say, "Well, this movie may work. But am I going to spend $30 [million] or $40 [million] or $50 million [marketing] that to people?"  
  
POSTER: Mm-hmm.  
  
GIANOPULOS: Whereas if Scott wants it and both of us benefit from it, it's no different really than studios have been making [movies of the week] for the TV networks for 50 or 60 years.  
  
POSTER: I don't see it as an A or B movie thing. It's financial.  
  
 _Toby, have you thought about what a Warner Bros. movie for Blockbuster looks like?_  
  
EMMERICH: We are starting to talk about it.  
  
STUBER: Come on, tell me!  
  
EMMERICH: ( _Laughs_.)  
  
STUBER: With Jim, we made this [teen rom-com] _To All the Boys I've Loved Before_ , which is a terrific film. There have been genres that we have lost in the theatrical business. What everyone will find in a great way [with streaming] is you open the funnel. Even _Roma_ , right? Which on paper is a black-and-white foreign-language film, but the audience was there for it. _Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile_ did quite well on the service, as did Miramax's _The Perfection_. We have _Dolemite Is My Name_ and _Marriage Story_ coming out.  
  
POSTER: We not only have 20th Century Fox as a whole, we still have Fox Searchlight, which both of these gentlemen [Rothman and Gianopulos] know a lot about. They have won four out of the last 10 [best picture] Academy Awards. And we are backing them 100 percent because they make terrific movies with very renowned filmmakers with great casts. We also still have Fox 2000 Pictures for midbudget work, Blue Sky for animation, and Touchstone Pictures for continued work and emphasis on mature storytelling. Disney is anything and everything, in that sense, and can basically tackle any kind of film.  
  
 _But not all of the Fox, Fox 2000, Touchstone and Searchlight movies will get theatrical releases, right?_  
  
POSTER: Oh, I think they will, yeah.

_Jen, what are your thoughts regarding theaters versus streaming?_

TODD: We personally believe that films belong on the silver screen, and most of our work is definitely geared for the movie theaters. But if Blockbuster offers terms too good to refuse, we'll certainly take it. Our thoughts are that cinemas, broadcast TV, cable TV and streaming can coexist peacefully and there isn't a need for one of those to come out "on top" of the others. Besides, theaters still attract tens of billions in profits every year. Why mess with a good thing?  
  
 _Let's talk about China because we have seen flare-ups in this battle between free speech and appeasing the Chinese government. What is the censorship limit for Hollywood? Meryl, the star of your upcoming_ Mulan _picture voiced support for Hong Kong police, which sparked a #BoycottMulan movement._  
  
POSTER: First of all, if _Mulan_ doesn't work in China, we have a problem. But my feeling is that free speech is an important component of our society, and folks ought to be able to say what they want to say. And I can't speak for what Yifei Liu says in China, and we didn't know what she was going to say. We try to be nonpolitical. There is always an issue somewhere in the world, and China happens to be a very, very big market, but it's not the only market where there have been issues. The only thing I have said to the folks that work with me is to keep in mind that when you speak, [the media will quote you]. And that carries with it a certain responsibility. Be sensible and think before you speak. Especially on social media.  
  
 _Does it bother you that your movies can't offend China?_  
  
POSTER: No. We are making movies that are designed to be seen by an appreciative audience [everywhere]. We don't wish to be political. And to get dragged into a political discussion, I would argue, is sort of inherently unfair. We are not politicians.  
  
GIANOPULOS: I think there is also a difference between pandering and cultural sensitivity. You know, there is a big spotlight on China because of its growing global dominance and because of the limitations on press and freedoms in the country. But Malaysia, other parts of the world, India, we have been censoring movies for years [there] just to address the concerns of individual markets. When you do it in China it becomes pandering.  
  
 _Donna,_ Fast & Furious _is so big there, I'm guessing there won't be a Chinese villain in a future_ Fast _movie._  
  
LANGLEY: We run a business. We have to be sensitive to important markets.  
  
 _You've all done this a long time. What's the one movie that you are particularly proud that you got made? Jim and Tom, you can't say_ Titanic _or_ Avatar _._  
  
GIANOPULOS: Why not?  
  
LANGLEY: Yeah, why not?  
  
 _Because that's what I would think you would say._  
  
STUBER: Pair of aces right there.  
  
LANGLEY: Yeah, those weren't easy greenlights.  
  
GIANOPULOS: I would say commercially _Deadpool_ , and creatively _Slumdog Millionaire_ , which [Tom and I] did together.  
  
ROTHMAN: The one I am most proud of is actually a movie called _Master and Commander_ (2003). Peter Weir said no to me three different times. And I chased that movie for 14 years.  
  
EMMERICH: Wow.  
  
ROTHMAN: And I had to become the head of a studio with this gentleman to my right to be able to do it. Also, just last week I went to see _Moulin Rouge!_ on Broadway. And I was sitting there looking at the aesthetic of it and seeing the audience response to it. And my daughter was next to me; she was just in her teens.  
  
GIANOPULOS: It's funny you say that because I showed [my kids] when they were younger, and they didn't get it. Now they do.  
  
ROTHMAN: It was insane to do that at the time.  
  
LANGLEY: I just rewatched it. It's bonkers.  
  
ROTHMAN: And I remember standing on the set in Sydney begging Baz [Luhrmann] to roll film. "Let's go, roll it!"  
  
GIANOPULOS: "You have to finish!" ( _Laughs_.)  
  
LANGLEY: It's such a good movie. A movie that I am proud of — Scott was around for it — is _United 93_ , Paul Greengrass' movie. The first movie I advocated to greenlight as president of production. It was a movie we knew not many people would go and see. And we had a screening of it at the Ziegfeld Theater with all of the [victims'] families. It was so powerful and so cathartic. On the complete other end of the spectrum, the other movie I am really proud of from a commercial standpoint was _Mamma Mia!_ There were a lot of people [at the studio] who didn't love Abba as much as I did.  
  
STUBER: I was around. She did love Abba. That was all Donna.  
  
EMMERICH: We're about to start shooting the Elvis Presley movie with Baz in Australia. And just listening to Tom's story I envision myself in Australia saying, "Baz, roll! Please roll!"  
  
LANGLEY: Just put him on the phone with Tom.  
  
EMMERICH: For me the one that comes to mind just because it's happening right now, and I think Donna might have even been around when this movie started — we started developing in 1998 — was _Motherless Brooklyn_.  
  
LANGLEY: Yes. Yes. Yes.  
  
EMMERICH: Ed Norton persevered and we just had the premiere in New York at the New York Film Festival closing night. Just to say, "Wow, we worked on this for 20 years and we actually did it," is very satisfying.  
  
 _Jen, you've been around for a while in film, but what about a meaningful show?_  
  
TODD: I certainly feel that a lot of the shows we've done are meaningful, especially series like _BoJack Horseman_ , _Avatar: The Last Airbender_ , _Westworld_. I also can speak for experience about Jeff Robinov, who Toby took over from. He'd have said the best work might have been things like _The Dark Knight_ , making sure _Harry Potter_ was done right.  
  
POSTER: In my long career, I look back with great affection at Kevin Smith's first film, _Clerks_. I look back at _Good Will Hunting_ and _The Cider House Rules_. I loved my time at Miramax and always will. And at Disney we are all very proud of _Black Panther_ and _Captain Marvel_ because they ventured into areas that were not ventured into before.  
  
EMMERICH: I am now feeling like a real underachiever. ( _Laughs_.)  
  
STUBER: Two that stick out. I would have never dreamed what Donna and these guys have done with _Fast & Furious_, but when we [first] did it I was a young executive and Kevin Misher bought an article and said go do it. What was fun about it was watching all of that talent have their first hit together. On the flip side, what was great for me with _The Irishman_ last weekend at the New York Film Festival was being with those icons and seeing Bob and Al and Joe and Marty. Just being around it I felt like a little kid.  
  
POSTER: So great.  
  
 _Is there one that got away? Something you regret passing on?_  
  
GIANOPULOS: The _300_ that [Warner Bros.] made. We had a narrow window to [make it]. And that was like a story my grandmother used to tell me as a little kid. She always told me Greek myth stories.  
  
POSTER: It's so interesting you'd say _300_.  
  
GIANOPULOS: I was so close to it that I thought we should do it for real. And I saw this comic book, the [Frank] Miller book, and I thought, "Oh come on, you can't do it like that." I thought Ridley Scott should do it like _Gladiator_. When Zack Snyder came in, I said, "Are there swords in this movie?" Yes. "Are there sandals? Arrows?" Yes. "Shields?" Yes. I said, "Come on, we just did _Troy_ 20 minutes ago. How are we going to do that?"  
  
LANGLEY: It wasn't obvious until it was obvious.

* * *

"Rian Johnson, Ram Bergman Expand T-Street With Producer Trio," by Dave McNary, _Variety_ , November 14, 2019  
  
Rian Johnson and Ram Bergman are expanding their T-Street Productions with Lucasfilm veterans Kiri Hart and Stephen Feder, along with Ben LeClair.  
  
Johnson is best known for directing and writing 2017’s _Star Wars: The Last Jedi_ , which Bergman produced with Kathleen Kennedy. The duo is teamed via T-Street on the upcoming _Knives Out_ , starring Daniel Craig, Chris Evans, Ana de Armas and Jamie Lee Curtis. Hart, Feder and LeClair will serve as producers for T-Street.  
  
Johnson and Bergman said, “We wanted T-Street to be a place where filmmakers would feel supported throughout the entire process. That thinking led us to Kiri, Stephen and Ben, who we’ve been lucky enough to work with in different capacities over the years. They are not only experienced producers committed to taking the best possible care of filmmakers and their projects, they also happen to be really good people who share our passion for making movies.”  
  
Hart most recently served as Lucasfilm’s senior vice president of development from 2012-2018. She formed the Lucasfilm Story Group and oversaw the creative development of all “Star Wars” content across film, animated television, publishing, gaming, immersive media and theme parks. Hart co-produced _Star Wars: The Last Jedi_ and _Rogue One: A Star Wars Story_ , and was a producer on all four seasons of _Star Wars Rebels_.  
  
Feder most recently served as vice president of film development at Lucasfilm, reporting to Hart. Prior to joining Lucasfilm, Feder was the senior vice president of production and development at Annapurna Pictures, where he oversaw production and distribution for Richard Linklater’s _Everybody Wants Some!!_ , Wong Kar-Wai’s _The Grandmaster_ and Harmony Korine’s _Spring Breakers_.  
  
LeClair most recently had a first-look deal with Blumhouse Television, and last year was nominated by Film Independent for the Piaget Producers Award. Prior to Blumhouse, he produced _The Lovers_ for A24; _Woodshock_ , written and directed by Kate and Laura Mulleavy; and the self-distributed film _Upstream Color_. LeClair’s other producing credits include Mike White’s _Year of the Dog_ ; _The English Teacher,_ starring Julianne Moore; and Jared Hess’ comedy _Gentlemen Broncos_.  
  
T-Street launched earlier this year with an investment from Valence Media, which holds a minority equity stake in the studio. T-Street also signed a first-look deal for film and television with Valence Media’s independent studio MRC.

* * *

"20th Century Fox's Roller Coaster First Year Under Disney," by Dave McNary, _Variety_ , November 20, 2019  
  
Among the notable stories in Hollywood this year was the fact that 2019 marked the first year 20th Century Fox and its various sister divisions were officially attached to The Walt Disney Company. With their numbers part of Disney's overall financial health, it was remained to be seen how much the studio was a fit for its new parent. And indeed, while there was certainly hit success, nothing on the Fox side was the kind of breakaway hit Disney may be used to, and there were certainly some very notable flops.  
  
Fox's first year under Disney hit the ground running with the release of the long-awaited _Alita: Battle Angel_ on Valentine's Day, where it amassed a modest profit. Fox 2000 Pictures' faith-based drama _Breakthrough_ similarly was modestly successful, mainly because of its small budget. Afterwards, though, there seemed to be a continual string of failures. Fox Searchlight Pictures started the marking of its 25th anniversary with the biopic _Tolkien_ , which no one warmed to. The buddy comedy _Stuber_ , starring Dave Bautista, was completely ignored. Natalie Portman's astronaut drama _Lucy in the Sky_ , produced by Reese Witherspoon, failed to soar and didn't even get out of the six-digit range in the box office. _The Art of Racing in the Rain_ was a shameless reach for the "dog movie" audience that not even Kevin Costner as the narrating dog could attract. But the biggest failure undoubtedly was _Dark Phoenix_ , the effective end of Fox's _X-Men_ franchise. Critics and moviegoers alike savaged the film mercilessly, and the movie induced massive losses of $120 million. It was such a misstep that Disney announced that a number of Fox properties still in-development were now under review and talks of reshuffling the release schedule plans made the wires. Already prior to this, Disney had done a reshuffling of certain film releases under their own banner, such as moving their adaptation of Eoin Colfer's _Artemis Fowl_ back a year.  
  
Fox seemed to then reestablish its footing. The indie horror _Ready or Not_ was a critical smash and made back five times its budget. Taika Waititi's "anti-hate satire" _Jojo Rabbit_ received mostly positive reviews and also entered in the black, though by a more modest amount. Brad Pitt's sci-fi drama _Ad Astra_ similarly managed to hold its own, even after its ticket sales dipped considerably after the opening of _Joker_ , with a healthy $300 million. Fox/Disney also handles the international distribution and profits of _Terminator: Dark Fate_ , which while not mirroring the massive unparalleled success of the original two films, is cementing its place alongside them and achieving _Alita_ -level profits. (This gives not only Fox a major win, but also domestic distributor Paramount, badly in need of one after the recent Ang Lee-directed action movie _Gemini Man_ , starring Will Smith as a former government assassin battling a younger clone of himself, failed miserably.) And then there is James Mangold's _Ford v Ferrari_ , which is riding to massive critical buzz and has already passed the $100 million mark, and still climbing. Clearly, things are looking back on track, though there will still undoubtedly be flops, perhaps eclipsing the status of _Dark Phoenix_ to come, and Disney is considering potentially switching some properties to forgo theatrical release and go straight to Blockbuster Entertainment. Already, Disney has been mulling reboots or doing something with Fox IPs like _Home Alone_ , _Cheaper by the Dozen_ , _Night at the Museum_ and _Diary of a Wimpy Kid_ as exclusives for the service.  
  
While Fox seems to be getting over its initial growing pains with Disney and finding its rhythm, the road ahead could very easily still be quite bumpy, and plans will have to be adjusted accordingly. It also remains to be seen what Disney plans to do, exactly, with massive Fox IPs like _Alien, Predator,_ and _Planet of the Apes_ , even if they have stressed that they will continue. Fox has two last major releases for 2019 coming up, the Springbok-produced Clint Eastwood film _Richard Jewell_ (a co-release by another Disney division, Touchstone Pictures), which will open on December 13, and Blue Sky Animation's _Spies in Disguise_ , starring Will Smith and Tom Holland, which will open on Christmas Day. The numbers on that could also help make the picture come into clearer focus.  
  
For 2020, Fox/Disney will have Josh Boone's _The New Mutants_ , the official end of the _X-Men_ franchise, Fox 2000's adaptation of _The Woman in the Window_ starring Amy Adams, Shawn Levy's _Free Guy_ starring Ryan Reynolds and Taika Waititi, an adaptation of _The Call of the Wild_ starring Harrison Ford, the _Kingsmen_ prequel _The King's Man_ starring Ralph Fiennes, _Underwater_ starring Kristen Stewart, Kenneth Branagh following up his adaptation of _Murder on the Orient Express_ with a version of _Death on the Nile_ , Steven Spielberg and Springbok's remake of _West Side Story_ , and two more Springbok projects. These include Ridley Scott's _The Last Duel_ , written by Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, co-produced by their Pearl Street Films banner with Scott Free Productions and Springbok, and starring them as well as Adam Driver and Jodie Comer, about the last legally recognized duel in France in the year 1386, which has been slated for a limited release on Christmas Day 2020 and a wide release on January 8, 2021. The other project is _Deep Water_ , an adaptation of the Patricia Highsmith novel of the same name, starring Affleck and Ana de Armas, directed by Adrian Lyne, and co-produced by Regency Enterprises/New Regency, for a release on November 13, 2020. Beyond that, Locksmith Animation's _Ron's Gone Wrong_ will come in 2021, as is Fox Searchlight's release of Guillermo del Toro's adaptation of _Nightmare Alley_ , and the future _Avatar_ sequels, as well as potential _Alita_ and _Terminator_ sequels will also dominate the years ahead, especially on off years without a Star Wars film to release.

* * *

"ViacomCBS Announces Completion of the Merger of CBS and Viacom", BusinessWire, December 4, 2019  
  
NEW YORK–ViacomCBS Inc. (Nasdaq: VIACA, VIAC) (“ViacomCBS”) today announced the completion of the merger between CBS Corporation and Viacom Inc. The combined company, which is renamed ViacomCBS, creates a premium content powerhouse with global scale, including leadership positions in markets across the U.S., Europe, Latin America and Asia.  
  
“This is a historic moment that brings together two iconic companies to form one of the world’s most important content producers and providers,” said Bob Bakish, President and Chief Executive Officer of ViacomCBS. “Through the combination of CBS’s and Viacom’s complementary assets, capabilities and talented teams, ViacomCBS will create and deliver premium content for its own platforms and for others, while providing innovative solutions for advertisers and distributors globally. I am excited about the opportunity we have to serve our audiences, creative and commercial partners, and employees, while generating significant long-term value for our shareholders.”  
  
Building on an extraordinary collection of culture-defining franchises and partnerships with creative talent around the world, ViacomCBS will be home to more than 140,000 premium TV episodes and 3,600 film titles, with global production capabilities and more than $13 billion in annual content investment. The company will account for 22% of TV viewership in the U.S. and hold the highest share of broadcast and cable viewing across key audience demographics, with strength in all categories, including News, Sports, General Entertainment, Pop Culture, Comedy, Music and Kids.  
  
Through the strength and scale of these assets, ViacomCBS will be well-equipped to maximize the value of its content for its own platforms and for others, as it meets the growing global demand for third-party premium content. The company’s content scale will support a robust streaming strategy, including ViacomCBS’s own suite of advertising and subscription-based offerings. In addition, the company’s broad reach, extensive intellectual property portfolio and expertise in advanced marketing solutions will enable it to strengthen its partnerships with distributors and advertisers globally.  
  
ViacomCBS Class A and Class B shares will begin trading on the NASDAQ Global Select Market on December 5, 2019 under the ticker symbols “VIACA” and “VIAC”, respectively.  
  
As previously announced, as a result of the merger, each Viacom Class A share and Viacom Class B share converted into 0.59625 of a Class A share and Class B share of ViacomCBS, respectively. Holders of CBS Class A shares and CBS Class B shares will continue to own their existing shares, which are now shares of ViacomCBS.  
  
ViacomCBS will have an attractive growth outlook, be positioned to deliver beneficial cost and revenue synergies and generate substantial free cash flow. This will sustain significant investment in programming and innovation, as well as support ViacomCBS’s commitment to a modest dividend payment. ViacomCBS will also benefit from a strong balance sheet, solid investment grade rating and a board and management team that are focused on creating shareholder value.  
  
About ViacomCBS  
ViacomCBS (NASDAQ: VIAC; VIACA) is a leading global media and entertainment company that creates premium content and experiences for audiences worldwide. Driven by iconic consumer brands, its portfolio includes CBS, Showtime Networks, Paramount Pictures, Nickelodeon, MTV, Comedy Central, BET, Pluto TV and Simon & Schuster, among others. The company delivers the largest share of the U.S. television audience and boasts one of the industry’s most important and extensive libraries of TV and film titles. In addition to offering innovative streaming services and digital video products, ViacomCBS provides powerful capabilities in production, distribution and advertising solutions for partners on five continents.

* * *

"ViacomCBS Sets $375 Million Deal for 49% Stake in Miramax," by Cynthia Littleton, _Variety_ , December 21, 2019  
  
ViacomCBS has reached a deal to acquire a 49% stake in Miramax from Qatar-based owner beIN Media Group for a total of $375 million.  
  
The deal calls for ViacomCBS to pay $150 million in cash up front, plus a commitment to invest $45 million a year for five years to fund new film and TV projects and working capital. ViacomCBS’ Paramount Pictures gets an exclusive long-term deal for worldwide distribution rights to Miramax’s projects. The partners will also work together on developing new projects and reboots and revivals of titles from the Miramax vault, with special permission from The Walt Disney Company, who still own the physical library and distribution of the original Miramax from 1980-2001. Disney also allows the same rights for Paramount/beIN Media to the same for "spiritually Miramax" titles made during 2001-2010 (when Disney spun off the Miramax name) under their Touchstone Pictures division.  
  
“Miramax is a renowned global studio, responsible for some of the most iconic films of the last three decades, including _Pulp Fiction_ , _Good Will Hunting_ , _Chasing Amy_ and more,” said Bob Bakish, president-CEO of ViacomCBS. “This partnership with beIN will be a unique opportunity to gain access to a valuable library, deepening our already substantial pool of IP at a time when demand for premium content is only accelerating. We look forward to working closely with the Miramax management team as we explore new ways to deliver its titles across a variety of platforms and create new, compelling projects.”  
  
beIN Media Group chairman Nasser Al-Khelaifi said the sale is not a retrenchment from Hollywood but a reinforcement of the company’s desire to grow its entertainment operations. beIN Media assets began as the sports arm of Al Jazeera but the company is now a separate entity. beIN Media acquired Miramax from private equity owners in 2016. The company sees the ViacomCBS deal as a win in bringing in a partner with strategic assets that can grow the company while still allowing beIN Media to retain a slim majority and controlling stake. beIN Media is said to have an appetite for additional content acquisitions.  
  
 _“_ This represents a major investment in and endorsement of our thriving Miramax business, which has grown in value under beIN Media Group’s ownership and has a fantastic future ahead with major new movies and unexploited premium dramas,” Al-Khelaifi said. “We are thrilled to partner with ViacomCBS and Paramount to explore further opportunities around Miramax’s iconic IP, and also at Group level; while substantially increasing the scale of our entertainment business. This deal further underlines beIN’s ambitions on the global stage – we are very proud to have established ourselves as one of the leading groups in sport, entertainment and media.”  
  
The partners said beIN Media intends to retain the remaining 51% of Miramax. The studio’s current management team headed by film biz veteran Bill Block will continue to lead the company. The deal is expected to close in the first quarter of next year.  
  
Miramax had been dormant for years amid the effects of Harvey Weinstein's fall from grace and the ownership shuffles, but under Block’s direction the studio resurfaced in a noticeable way with films like _Mr. Holmes_ , _The Wedding Ringer_ , _Southside With You_ , _The Perfection, Jay and Silent Bob Reboot_ (which was also released by DreamWorks Pictures and distributed by Disney's Touchstone Pictures, the 20th film in a long-standing 30-film pact Disney and Steven Spielberg made in 2009), and successful relaunch of the _Halloween_ horror franchise. Up next, Miramax has the family drama _Uncle Frank_ set to premiere at Sundance next month and crime dramedy _The Gentlemen_ , starring Matthew McConaughey and Hugh Grant, also bowing next month. _Gentlemen_ is the first of a two-picture pact with director Guy Ritchie.  
  
Moelis & Co.’s Carlos Jimenez and David Eisman and Glen Mastroberte in the entertainment unit of Skadden Arps represented BeIN Media Group in the sale. Guggenheim Securities and O’Melveny & Myers represented ViacomCBS.

* * *

"On an Old West Set, Trying to Create Hollywood's Future", by Brooks Barnes, _The New York Times_ , December 23, 2019  
  
Rideback Ranch is an attempt by one of the entertainment industry’s leading producers to find a new way to develop ideas for movies and TV shows.  
  
A gnarled buffalo hide hangs inside “the barn,” a cavernous room furnished with sofas and long tables. A secret passageway leads to an old-fashioned saloon where whiskey bottles line the wooden shelves and the bar stools are actual saddles. Antlers and antique rifles adorn the walls.  
  
A cowboy maxim greets visitors: “Everybody in. Everybody forward. Everybody up.”  
  
This is Rideback Ranch and, in some ways, it feels like a movie set, perhaps one built for Leonardo DiCaprio’s Old West scenes in _Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood_. But the two-year-old complex in a gentrifying area of Los Angeles called Filipinotown is actually an attempt by one of the entertainment industry’s leading producers, Dan Lin, to find a new way to develop ideas for movies and TV shows.  
  
Rideback is a communal work space for Hollywood writers and producers. Mr. Lin calls it “a new kind of production hub — a community in service of creativity.”  
  
His credits include blockbusters like _Aladdin_ , _It_ and _The Lego Movie_. He was the producing force behind _The Two Popes_ , a $40 million comedic drama about Vatican succession that arrives on Blockbuster Entertainment on Friday. _The Two Popes_ , nominated for four Golden Globes, including one for best drama, is expected to be a major contender at the Academy Awards.  
  
But how does Mr. Lin keep the hits coming?  
  
The challenges include labor unrest; screenwriters fired their agents en masse in April and the major agencies and the Writers Guild of America are fighting each other in court. The streaming boom led by Blockbuster has created a glut of content (495 scripted original series in 2018, an 85 percent increase from 2011), increasing the pressure to come up with concepts that can break through. Film studios are leaning harder on franchises to coax people into buying tickets, but many properties, including the four-film _Lego_ series, have already been overworked.  
  
Mr. Lin is betting that Rideback will strengthen and accelerate the creative process. It is a Hollywood twist on WeWork, the shared office space company. Mr. Lin said he was also inspired by Pixar’s “brain trust” sessions, in which directors and writers candidly critique one another’s work, by the success of Hollywood's biggest and most recent success story, Springbok Productions (who co-produced the recent Guy Ritchie-helmed _Aladdin_ with Rideback) and by _The Medici Effect_ , Frans Johansson’s 2004 book about the ignition of the Renaissance.  
  
“If you put a bunch of creative people from different backgrounds into one space, something magical will happen,” Mr. Lin said. “Studio lots used to be just that. You would walk around and everyone would be there. But studio lots aren’t as much fun anymore. They can feel corporate. Springbok has made that concept work over the last 20 years, but why should they be the only ones? There's plenty of room for new players, and Springbok has definitely even said as much, which is part of why they're happy to work and commune with us.”  
  
Mr. Lin has 15 employees of his own. They work on the Rideback campus, where they are focused on finding a way forward for the _Lego_ series, most likely with a new studio partner. (Universal is one option.) Other front-burner projects include an _Aladdin_ sequel and a television spinoff for Blockbuster; _Lethal Weapon 5_ , with Mel Gibson and Danny Glover signed up to return; movies based on Cirque du Soleil shows; and a remake of the TV series _Walker, Texas Ranger_.  
  
He also leases space to the actress Margot Robbie for her LuckyChap production company, which was founded in 2014 thanks to some seed money from Springbok. Mr. Lin and Ms. Robbie are collaborating on _Barbed Wire Heart_ , a film adaptation of Tess Sharpe’s crime novel. Other Rideback tenants include the DCEU writers' room member David Ayer, two animation companies (Warner Animation Group, Animal Logic) and the Conner literary agency. About 100 people work at Rideback in total.  
  
The complex has “artists in residence” like Adam Ward, who creates sculptures made of Lego bricks. The saloon is used for nighttime events, like panel discussions and mixers.  
  
Rideback also has three script-development programs. An “incubator,” for instance, operates from the barn and is sponsored by MRC, an entertainment company with credits like _Knives Out, Ted, House of Cards_ and _Ozark_. Five fledgling writers from diverse backgrounds are each paid $200,000 for a six-month residency. They help one another create shows that can be shopped to cable networks and Blockbuster Entertainment. Experienced showrunners like Glen Mazzara ( _The Walking Dead_ ) serve as mentors.  
  
Mr. Lin joined with CBS and the TV writer Craig Turk ( _The Good Wife_ ) to create a similar initiative. The campfire, as this one is known, pairs movie writers who want to break into television with experienced CBS writers, according to Lindsey Liberatore, Rideback’s executive vice president for television. Two campfire show ideas were recently sold to CBS.  
  
“The best feedback comes from fellow creators,” Mr. Lin said. “We want to bring people and ideas together to elevate the potential of both.”  
  
It must be said: Mr. Lin can come across like a goody-two-shoes. He cites Fred Rogers, aka Mister Rogers, as one of his inspirations. Once a week, Mr. Lin will excitedly tell you, Rideback sends writers to a nearby grade school; they help children from immigrant families write plays. Another Rideback program centers on a shelter for homeless women and their children.  
  
Here in the narcissism capital, Mr. Lin’s sweetness and sunshine can be hard to take at face value. Rideback is a business. This must just be the way he shrouds his ambition.  
  
But people who know him insist otherwise.  
  
In Hollywood “people are really good at appearing to be decent and good,” Modi Wiczyk, a co-founder of MRC, said. “Dan is actually decent and good. He is also incredibly ambitious — you don’t get to where he is by accident. All of those qualities can be hard to reconcile in one person. Bob Iger and Dick Cook at Disney are also much the same.” Mr. Wiczyk met Mr. Lin in the 1990s as classmates at Harvard Business School.  
  
The son of Taiwanese immigrants, Mr. Lin, 46, is part of a generational changing of the guard in Hollywood. With lions like Jerry Bruckheimer, 76, Joe Roth, 71, and Joel Silver, 67, having a harder time finding hits or easing toward retirement, people like Jason Blum, 50, Ava DuVernay, 47, Jordan Peele, 40, and Mr. Lin have built production companies that tap into new cultural currents, notably inclusion. As it happens, Mr. Blum’s wildly successful Blumhouse Productions and Ms. DuVernay’s newer Array Creative Campus are also located in Filipinotown, which borders downtown Los Angeles. Mr. Peele's Monkeypaw Productions isn't located in Filipinotown, but is close enough.  
  
“It’s looking at a systemic problem, which is the lack of diverse voices — how to feed new talent into a system that has been rather closed,” said Lynda Obst, a longtime producer ( _Interstellar_ ) and the author of “Sleepless in Hollywood: Tales From the New Abnormal in the Movie Business. She added, “As streaming takes over, that is more important than ever.”  
  
"Rideback is certainly a company we feel has a great potential to succeed," said Jennifer Todd, CEO of Springbok. "When we worked on _Aladdin_ , it was quite a wonderful and creative experience, and we enjoyed coming to the Ranch for creative discussions, work on the script, editing and the like. Dan is a great creative partner, and we look forward to working with him more in the future, and for Rideback as a whole to grow."  
  
The money to build Rideback — and the philosophy behind it — came from a court battle. About a decade ago, Mr. Lin and two partners helped Legendary Pictures obtain remake rights to _Godzilla_. In 2013, the relationship between Legendary and the three producers curdled, resulting in multiple lawsuits. After losing several court rulings, Legendary settled. _Godzilla_ took in $525 million in 2014.  
  
“Fighting them in court brought me to the brink of personal bankruptcy, but it ended up with them writing me a huge check,” Mr. Lin said. “My wife and I, we are religious people, and we prayed about what to do with the money, and the answer involved lifting others up.”  
  
He pointed to a program he calls the Rideback Collective. It is a secretive, invitation-only group of 25 film writers. Twice a month, a subset of the group participates in a version of the Pixar brain trust sessions — one member takes a vexing project (a cut of a film or an unfinished script) to a session and the group spends about three hours in the evening brainstorming about improvements. It’s all pro bono, and Mr. Lin declined to disclose the participants.  
  
“Some of the projects may be set up at studios, and the creators may not want the studio to know that they’re struggling,” he said.  
  
Mr. Lin provides space and administrative support. He does not receive producing credits on collective projects, although he is betting that some collective members will want him to produce their work. Several members, in fact, have been discussing a financing arrangement with Mr. Lin.  
  
He also has access to the workshops. For instance, collective members, along with people from Disney and Springbok, viewed an early version of _Aladdin_ and suggested improvements, he said. Disney and Springbok then hired a writer to compose pages for additional photography. _Aladdin_ , directed by Guy Ritchie from a screenplay credited to Ritchie and John August, collected $1 billion at the box office over the summer.  
  
Meg LeFauve, a writer known for her work on Pixar films, runs the Rideback Collective. “Writing can be a very solo, lonely job,” she said. “You leave these sessions with insights into how other big story brains work.”  
  
Mr. Lin started his career as an executive at Warner Bros., where he steered _The Departed_ , Martin Scorsese’s Oscar-nominated 2006 drama about the Boston mob (and Lin's earliest connection to Springbok, who helped produce that project). He became a producer in 2008. His early producing tenure was marked by hits ( _Sherlock Holmes_ ) and misses ( _Gangster Squad_ ).  
  
In 2010, Mr. Lin started to vacation in rural Bigfork, Montana, with his wife and sons. It was there, he said, that someone mentioned the term “rideback.”  
  
“It’s a cowboy word,” he said. “When you fall, the others make sure you aren’t left behind. They ride back to help you.”

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"Hasbro Completes $3.8 Billion Acquisition of Entertainment One," by Cynthia Littleton, _Variety_ , December 30, 2019  
  
Hasbro is poised to become a bigger player in entertainment now that the toy giant has completed its acquisition of Entertainment One.  
  
The $3.8 billion all-cash deal was unveiled in August. Entertainment One CEO Darren Throop will report to Hasbro chairman-CEO Brian Goldner. Olivier Dumont, eOne’s president of family & brands, Steve Bertram, president, film and television, and Chris Taylor, global president of music, will also make the move to Hasbro and continue to report to Throop.  
  
Hasbro also said Monday in announcing the closing that it would pay off about $700,000 in eOne debt as part of the transaction. As of eOne’s most recent earnings report from March, the company has about $450 million in debt on its books.  
  
Hasbro aims to capitalize on eOne’s kidvid brands including the _Peppa Pig_ franchise, and it aims to use eOne’s production and distribution infrastructure to boost its array of well-known properties ranging from _Transformers_ to board games such as Monopoly to _My Little Pony_.  
  
“We are excited about what we can do together and see tremendous opportunity for shareholder value creation through this acquisition,” said Goldner. “Our businesses are highly complementary with substantial synergies and a great cultural fit. The addition of eOne accelerates our blueprint strategy by expanding our brand portfolio with eOne’s beloved global preschool brands, adding proven TV and film expertise, and creating additional opportunities for long-term profitable growth.”  
  
It’s still unclear whether Hasbro intends to pursue projects outside of the kid and family realm. Entertainment One is known for producing and distributing art-house movies and adult series for buyers in the U.S., UK and other key markets. eOne is also a key member of Steven Spielberg's Amblin Partners, alongside DreamWorks Pictures, Amblin Entertainment, Participant Media, Reliance Entertainment and Springbok Productions.


	6. 2020-2021

“Why Springbok Said ‘No’ to _Cats_ ,” by Leonard Soloway, _Playbill_ , January 2020

By now, many of you, at least those in the theater community, have probably gone and seen Tom Hooper’s adaptation of the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical _Cats_ , the show that basically gave birth to the megamusical, and has long divided many people about its merits for nearly 40 years now. But if there is one thing that a lot of you are probably in agreement on, it’s that the film is an absolute monument to misguided effort, that simply attempts an impossible task, and horribly mangles the source material beyond recognition. It simply was quite a colossal failure by any standards, and those of us at Springbok, especially here at the theatrical division, recognized it from the start. But how? How did we see that coming, and why did we refuse?

By all accounts, given the nature of Springbok’s work in staged musical theatre and film adaptations of popular shows, this seems like something we’d be spearheading ourselves, like this is something that we’d sink our teeth into and make it come to life. Well, the people at Universal certainly felt that way, and repeatedly asked us to be part of their and Andrew’s dream to make a film of the show, something they’d been attempting since the ‘90s. Many people had tried and failed to make it work, including Steven Spielberg, who wanted to do an animated film at the time, but let the project fade after he formed DreamWorks and because he said he couldn’t figure out how to do it justice. Universal held onto the rights by helping distribute the famed 1998 concert video of the stage version, which did well in home video sales and was repeatedly broadcast by the BBC and PBS. This was to buy themselves time to figure out to achieve their dream. Especially after musical theatre made a spectacular renaissance, and the film musical definitely did, thanks in no small part to Springbok’s efforts over the past 20 years.

This was particularly the case after we worked with Universal on the adaptation of _Les Miserables_ , which also happened to be directed by Tom Hooper, and was a zestful and inspired collaboration where everything went right for us, at least in my humble opinion. So naturally, when Universal started sparking the engine that was their dream of a film of _Cats_ , we were among the people they naturally wanted to help them bring it to life. They repeatedly talked to me, Elizabeth Williams and Anita Waxman at the theatrical division, and put in calls to Kurt, Charlize and Jennifer Todd as well. And all of us stunned the Universal folks by saying “no.” No matter how much they begged, pleaded and wheedled for all of us to see things their way, the answer was always the same.

The reason for this was quite simple: _Cats_ is not a stage production that CAN be adapted into a film. The musical, which we’ve seen many times, is just a good old-fashioned song-and-dance show that is held together by a loose concept, but can’t be truly called a concept musical because of too many deviations from that formula. The narrative, such as it is, is slight, but the songs, staging, choreography and performances speak for themselves to carry it all. Of course, this has been a double-edged sword, as _Cats_ is a love it or hate it musical, with no middle ground, and many detractors have ample grist to bawl out the show for its lack of an intricate plot, making an ensemble piece where most character don’t drive events forward, orchestrations fully rooted in the ‘80s with layers of synths alongside the standard orchestral textures, and frequent breaking of the fourth wall, and often interacting fully with the audience, certainly not something a theatergoing audience is necessarily in the mood for. The polarizing nature of the show simply does not bode well for crossover appeal. There are lots of musicals that can convert people that aren’t already fans of the musical genre, and they can sweep people in. _Les Mis, The Phantom of the Opera, The Producers,_ Disney’s stage theater work, _West Side Story, Into the Woods_ and the likes have made considerable mainstream inroads, either directly onstage or through some kind of filmed record, and brought new fans to the fore. _Cats_ has never had strong enough legs for that, so the audience for a filmed adaptation was already considerably limited, ensuring box office would already be disappointing enough.

Even if that hadn’t been the case, the show as written and staged is not compelling enough to turn into a silver screen version; at least not without heavy revisions. But we knew from experience that Andrew is not someone who naturally goes for revisions, unless they come from him; he is often his own worst enemy in that regard; and we’ve only succeeded in working with him by tempering his weaknesses, which could sometimes cause agony to all of us. In this case, Andrew was wanting this piece to be turned into a book musical; which means a more concrete plot, more defined characters with a clear arc, dialogue, a lot things nailed down and less left to the imagination. I remember Elizabeth saying, “Well then, it’s not _Cats_ , it’s more like other musicals, and you want to rob it of its defining traits. I understand this is the only way a film can be made, but it shows why one shouldn’t be done.” Of course, Andrew and one nameless Universal executive kept saying they wanted to go forward, because this was a great opportunity, and it could certainly do better than we were giving it credit for.

Anita said, “If we are going to do that, then a lot of the songs need to be cut to make room for scenes, dialogue and motivation.” Andrew cut her off with, “I want the score as written in the show, plus the customary new song that the films get.” Anita was flustered at that. “Then what’s the point of making it a book musical? There’s no room to do it this way, because if you fit as many songs as possible, there’s precious little room for dialogue and story, especially if you want to keep it down to 90-120 minutes, as I’m sure you do. This isn’t going to work, Andrew.” Simply put, all of us thought that it was unfilmable, and that there simply was no way to do something on the big screen for a story so slight.

Simply put, that was where talks ended, and we’d firmly refused to be involved. Of course, Andrew and Universal were still going to press on, so the three of us at the stage division sort of kept watch where things were going, with the detached view of outsiders. We were aware that Tom was hired as director, and that Lee Hall, who worked with Elton John on the stage transfer of _Billy Elliot_ , and whom we’d worked with by him doing the script to _Rocketman_ , was going to handle the scriptwriter duties for this film. We also knew about their decisions to hire the likes of Jennifer Hudson, Idris Elba, Taylor Swift, Rebel Wilson, James Corden and Judi Dench for the cast, but up until last year, we basically did not really bother in terms of being “in the loop.” Universal and Tom kindly extended all of us an invite to see the film when it was “more or less” complete, which of course was not a very good sign, but hopefully it wouldn’t be as bad as we’d feared.

It wasn’t that bad. It was much worse. Naturally, the fact that they decided to transform it into a book musical, stuff it with cringe-inducing jokes, and a bizarre visual aesthetic basically confirmed everything that went into our minds when we saw that there was nothing to be done with the musical. I personally went to talk to those who’d worked on the film afterwards, and I got a sense of how tense and wearying the shoot was, and a good sign of where things went from merely bad to beyond incomprehensible.

The shoot began in December 2018, only a year out from the intended release date, which was also going to be the release date of _Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker_. Besides the obvious fact that the audiences were clearly going to choose Star Wars over _Cats_ , this was in no way a realistic target to hit. Depending on your budget and the postproduction work involved, it’s now becoming customary for films to often begin shooting 18 months to two years before the intended release date. Springbok and Disney’s live action _Beauty and the Beast_ , for example, started shooting in the late spring of 2015, well before the release of March 17, 2017. That was because we knew that after three months’ worth of principal photography, there was heavy postproduction work for the visual effects, and lots of tweaking that would need to be done, not just with editing, scoring and planning the marketing, but also for test screenings and nailing things down. Regardless of what one thinks of that film, it wouldn’t have been anywhere near what it became if we’d shot on a schedule such as the one that Tom and Universal had planned out.

Another thing that is worrisome is that Tom had never done a CGI-heavy film before, and _Les Mis_ was the only film he’d done with notable CG work, which were mere enhancements that didn’t have to support the whole endeavor. He didn’t have the experience to know if something rendered looked good or bad, especially because he made the VFX team fully render absolutely every take and element for him to determine which take was best. This is not remotely how things are done, because you have to tell what’s best before you do the full workup. Tom also did not know how to talk to the team, and came off as arrogant and condescending. We know from experience that he’s not, but because he was out of his element and didn’t know how effects work is done, his ignorance blinded him to the state of things, particularly how laborious and taxing it is, even under the best circumstances. The deadline didn’t help either, as the team experienced massive crunch, and there were far too many errors that made it into the released product.

This is not to take away from Tom or Lee, as they both are quite talented individuals, but many of the decisions they made simply were the product’s detriment. His decision to have the actors sing and dance live with mo-cap suits and large-sized practical stages for scale was unnecessary, the cat design, even if it had been at its best potential quality visually, was beyond ludicrous, as the hybrid human/cat look is beyond distracting; the songs were not served well in either the new arrangements or by the cast, the attempts to flesh out the story didn’t go far enough especially with lame humor and too many songs still in place, and the film was just a joyless slog that felt longer than it actually was.

If anything, we hope the experience is a lesson that sometimes, some things just can’t be made into a film.

* * *

"Hugh Jackman Relaunches Seed Productions with Springbok," by Manori Ravindran, _Variety_ , January 4, 2020  
  
Springbok Productions continues to add to its reputation for business-oriented charity to help keep Hollywood companies and studios alive, or relaunch them in some way. Today, Springbok announced that it is giving a special cash infusion to actor Hugh Jackman, with the intention to relaunch his shuttered production company Seed Productions, which was founded by Jackman, his wife Deborra-Lee Furness and business partner John Palermo in 2005, but closed up shop only five years later.  
  
When originally founded, the plan was to make up to five Australian films a year with a production budget of under $10 million for each project. They'd also been commissioned to produce a number of television productions and had plans to establish a theatre company in Sydney. Seed – a name which Palermo said came from the notion that "everything comes from a seed, every little idea"- was also to have a specialist artists’ management division, representing filmmakers, actors and writers locally and overseas.  
  
"Australia is where Deborra and Hugh are from, this is where their best friends live and a lot of the relationships they closely maintain," Palermo said at the time. "Our goal is to make four to five films a year under $10 million. It is ambitious but you have got to set your goals high, you have got to aim for something."  
  
Seed had head offices on the 20th Century Fox lot in Los Angeles, where the company had development deals with Fox, Disney, Universal and CBS. It also had Australian operations at Fox Studios Australia in Sydney, signaling the main overriding intention of locally-developed film and television projects. "We are committed to putting back into the industry here, to create work, build bridges and develop synergies between Australia and the US," Furness said. "Our aim is to support Australian filmmakers, to stimulate the creative community and provide international opportunities for Australian artists," Jackman said.  
  
Seed had very big ambitions, with the first locally-developed film project to be a love story epic directed by Stuart Beattie. Another film, to be directed by Nadia Tass, would star Furness in the title role and be shot early in 2007. Regarding Hollywood films, the only projects it brought to fruition were _Deception_ , starring Jackman and Ewan McGregor, and _X-Men Origins: Wolverine_. It was credited for, but not actually involved in, James Mangold’s 2013 film _The Wolverine_. None of its other planned projects, including the Beattie and Tass films, involvement in Nicolas Wending Refn’s _Drive_ , or a reenactment of the April 7, 1994 attempted hijacking of FedEx Flight 705 by Auburn Calloway from Memphis International Airport, ever got off the ground.  
  
For television production, Seed signed an exclusive output deal with pay TV provider Foxtel. A documentary series based on the forthcoming Ashes cricket tour was be hosted by Jackman, while Furness would host a 26-part profile series, called _The Directors_ , featuring interviews with well-known Australian filmmakers. The latter didn’t happen, but Seed managed to get the short-lived series _Viva Laughlin_ out along with the three various cricket documentary series with Jackman’s best friend, cricket fan Gus Worland, starting with _An Aussie Goes Barmy_.  
  
The failure of _X-Men Origins: Wolverine_ , which led Fox on a course correction for the franchise, was what did Seed in. But now, Springbok feels that it should be given another chance.  
  
“Hugh Jackman is not only a great actor, he certainly has the potential to be a great producer,” CEO Jennifer Todd states. “Seed Productions was ahead of its time, but now its time has come, especially if the chance means he is able to give something back to Australia. Our experiences with Icon Productions and friendships with Margot Robbie and her LuckyChap Entertainment certainly helped push us here, and our own business and cultural friendships with Australia, as well as Charlize (Theron)’s own work to push and develop talent from South Africa, has made it clear to us that this is a wonderful opportunity.”  
  
Springbok is expected to have a development deal for projects with Seed, as well as help nurture and replant its old connections with the major studios.

* * *

“MGM Executive Shakeup Could Foreshadow Bigger Changes at Storied Studio,” by Kim Masters and Tatiana Siegel, _The Hollywood Reporter_ , January 8, 2020  
  
 _As Michael De Luca replaces Jonathan Glickman atop the film unit ahead of April's James Bond pic_ No Time to Die _, top brass hope to parlay its vast library into a rich sale to an acquisitive rival (or even Apple)._ **  
  
**On March 1, veteran producer Michael De Luca (who has a history of work with New Line Cinema and DreamWorks Pictures, and has helped lead all film development at Springbok Productions since 2004) will take the reins of MGM's motion picture group as the studio attempts to define its future at a time when mid-budget films have largely fallen by the wayside and merger mania reigns in Hollywood.  
  
For the past two years, MGM has been the subject of acquisition rumors thanks to a rich library that includes the James Bond films, _Tomb Raider_ and _Legally Blonde_. (The Bond films alone would be enough to attract the interest of major studios.) Nine years removed from its emergence from bankruptcy, MGM stakeholders believe the company could command up to $10 billion, but it appears that leadership hopes to burnish the asset before undertaking a sale.  
  
In the era of media giants working to stake out their territory in a more highly fraught and specialized box office thanks to streaming, MGM stands on its own, highly leveraged and facing an evolving marketplace. While it went unreported in the media, the company in recent months wrote down $480 million on its investment in the Epix channel, which it bought for more than $1 billion in 2017. The service has 14 million subscribers and faces the same headwinds as other pay TV channels.  
  
MGM declined to comment on the writedown or even to confirm recent moves at the company, including the supposed addition of Sony Pictures co-chairman and producer Amy Pascal to the board in late summer.  
  
De Luca, 54, replaces Jonathan Glickman, a nine-year veteran of MGM who, according to sources, departed in part because of friction with Mark Burnett, chairman of the MGM Worldwide Television Group. The addition of De Luca appears to be part of an attempt to remake MGM — which has had recent success relaunching the _Rocky_ series with _Creed_ and its sequel and launching an animated franchise with 2019’s _The Addams Family_ — into a more attractive asset.  
  
Glickman’s exit is the latest shakeup at a company that saw CEO Gary Barber (a cofounder of Spyglass Entertainment) abruptly ousted in March 2018, just five months after he signed a new contract, only to be out and returning to Spyglass.  
  
Barber has not been replaced. Former TV executive Nancy Tellem, a longtime board member who became executive director of the "office of the CEO" in February, departed that role after six months — also in part because of clashes with Burnett, according to sources.  
  
Tellem, who remains on the board, did not respond to a request for comment. A source close to the company also says he was told on good authority that Steve Stark, president of scripted TV production and development, revised his deal in recent months to no longer report to Burnett but instead to the board (as will De Luca). But Stark tells THR he does indeed still report to Burnett.  
  
Multiple individuals with knowledge of the situation say CAA agent Bryan Lourd suggested bringing Pascal onto the board because of her vast creative experience and her relationship with producer Barbara Broccoli, keeper of the Bond franchise. (Sony Pictures distributed _Casino Royale_ , _Quantum of Solace, Skyfall_ and _Spectre_.) She did not respond to a request for comment, even a statement to clarify whether or not she is jumping ship from Sony, or merely adding another board to sit on while staying at her main job (like many executives do) soon.  
  
Pascal has a longstanding relationship with De Luca, dating back to when De Luca ran New Line Cinema during the 1990s and Pascal was an executive at Turner. De Luca helped spur film and script development at Springbok, including a number of projects for Sony, such as _The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo_. De Luca also did extramural work in this time and produced _The Social Network_ and _Moneyball_ , two award-winning hits for Pascal at Sony. And in addition to her longstanding executive work at Sony since 1996, Pascal also has a production shingle, Pascal Pictures, on the side, which has done some Sony films like the recent _Spider-Man_ films with Tom Holland and the animated _Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse_. It is likely that Pascal, whose most recent project for the shingle is _Little Women_ , will produce films for MGM, though her deal currently is with Universal.  
  
De Luca, who also did not respond to a request for comment, is said to be setting his sights on quality mid-budget films. The executive has extensive relationships in the industry and is known as filmmaker-friendly, even before his lengthy tenure with Springbok. (He has been open about substance-abuse issues and wild behavior in the past; a knowledgeable source says the MGM board raised the issue and came away satisfied, especially since Springbok also discussed his past history when vetting him.)  
  
The transition at the studio comes in the midst of postproduction of the 25th Bond film, _No Time to Die_ , set for April. Glickman will continue to oversee production and has a first-look deal with the studio. He will become a producer on the upcoming Aretha Franklin biopic _Respect_ , currently in production with Jennifer Hudson as the Queen of Soul.  
  
Who might buy MGM? Comcast, which already has international rights to _No Time to Die_ , is said to be a potential acquirer, as is Sony, which once owned MGM and either way has a familiar board member in Pascal. Shari Redstone's ViacomCBS recently acquired a minority stake in Miramax and needs to continue content shopping for her newly merged company, which could benefit from MGM's film library and its rights to such TV series as _The Handmaid's Tale_ and _Vikings_.  
  
But Apple, which has already made overtures, might be the best fit. While all media companies are looking to bolster content, Apple wants to have a leg in production, especially since it, along with the individual media companies have been shut out of the potential of doing streaming services of their own thanks to Blockbuster getting in on the ground floor early on. But it could still have a foot in the door to stand with the majors, mini-majors, production companies and the like, by purchasing a company and entering it into film and TV production this way.  
  
"Apple is so huge. Paying up for this would be nothing," says Wall Street analyst Hal Vogel. “They are sitting on $250 billion in cash.” Still, he thinks that no move toward a sale would take place before _No Time to Die_. “You’d want to sell it after the Bond film. That will make the debt more serviceable, and the valuation of the equity should be higher."  
  
Another knowledgeable source believes MGM could run into money trouble because it is so highly leveraged. This person estimates that the company needs _No Time to Die_ , the fifth and final Bond film starring Daniel Craig, to hit the $1 billion mark — no small feat given that 2015's _Spectre_ grossed $880.6 million worldwide. (In 2012, _Skyfall_ did cross that threshold with $1.1 billion.) An MGM source calls that notion unfounded, noting that the company enjoys ample liquidity and strong support from banks and lenders. Another source says De Luca can exit if cash constraints become a problem.  
  
MGM board member Kevin Ulrich, whose Anchorage Capital has the largest stake in the company, is said to be enamored of the entertainment business and has been resistant to selling in the past, but some insiders say he has become more amenable in recent months. Sources say Burnett wants to flip the asset, but the call will be made by majority shareholders Ulrich and Highland Film Group's Jim Dondero. (Dondero remains on the MGM board, though in December he was ousted from his bankrupt hedge fund business, Highland Capital Management LP.)  
  
"Management and the board are always looking to optimize value and are focused on making decisions in the best interest of the company and our stockholders, which includes the recent hire of Michael De Luca," an MGM spokesperson says. "Coupled with the leadership of Mark Burnett as the head of the studio's successful TV business, MGM is and continues to be well positioned to grow as we head into this next decade."  
  
Springbok CEO Jennifer Todd added, “While we are certainly sad to see Michael leave Springbok, we had an incredible 15-year-run with him, and enjoyed his participation and work to make our projects as great as they can be. MGM is certainly getting a winner with Michael at the helm. We wish him, and MGM, the best of luck in their future endeavors.”

* * *

"A Tale of Two Companies: How Apple Corps’ failure became Springbok’s Success" by Mikal Gilmore, _Rolling Stone_ , January 10, 2020 **  
  
**By this point, it is quite impossible to go somewhere in the wider world and not encounter the presence of Springbok Productions, the massively successful conglomerate founded by Kurt Cobain, Charlize Theron and Jennifer Todd. For more than two decades, this production company has obtained a massive influence in the worlds of film, television, animation, digital content, video games, musical theater, book publishing and the music industry. The company earns tens of billions every year, especially having a consistent track record at the box office and award circuits. It may very well be the biggest success story of the 21st century.  
  
But Springbok is hardly the first celebrity-fronted company, especially when it comes to film and TV. It’s also not even the first such conglomerate with an eye to focus on multiple fronts and divisions. That honor goes to The Beatles and their group, Apple Corps, which was founded by the Fab Four back in 1968 as a multimedia company. It was to be their new home as a record label (though still technically bound to EMI as well as Capitol Records for North America, distributing Apple Records releases as a vanity label), a film studio, an electronics company (not computers, though-that’s a separate company!), a clothing retailer, and some type of manufacturing concern as a sideline. During a press conference in New York, John Lennon and Paul McCartney referred to it as “a system whereby anybody who just wants to make anything don’t have to go down on their knees in somebody’s office…a trick to see if we can get artistic freedom in a business structure.”  
  
While The Beatles’ Apple wasn’t yet even the very first type of celebrity-fronted company of any kind (those honors go to Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz’s Desilu Productions, John Wayne’s Batjac Productions, Judy Garland and Sid Luft’s failed Transcona Enterprises (which had a prospective nine-picture slate with Warner Bros. as long as three of the prospective nine films starred Garland, and then folded because of the controversial release methof of the 1954 version of _A Star is Born_ ) and Clint Eastwood’s Malpaso Productions), it was definitely the first with an impressive and ambitious aim beyond a very narrow scope, especially in terms of moving to create a new paradigm in the business that it was aimed to be in. Springbok, when it was founded in 1999, essentially promised much the same thing, as Cobain, Theron and Todd announced all their aims from the start.  
  
But otherwise, there is very little in common between the two companies, and indeed the fate of one became a case study of lessons learned for the other. Indeed, as McCartney admitted in the documentary and book _The Beatles Anthology_ , “The theory was that we’d put all our affairs in one bundle into our own company. It’d be all the things we’d ever wanted to do. A lot of people do that now, they have their own companies, take their lawyers to meetings and get good deals. (McCartney and his wife Linda have their own company, MPL Communications.) It was the start of all that, but it was a really haphazard start.”  
  
Though Apple was very ambitious in its goals, its formation was actually approached with a considerable amount of reluctance. At the point it happened, The Beatles’ manager Brian Epstein had died from an accidental overdose of barbiturates, and the group was getting into Transcendental Meditation, a very critical fork in the road for them. The late Neil Aspinall, who was the group’s roadie and longtime friend until his death in 2008, and who helped the initial setup for Apple as interim leader, said in the _Anthology_ , “The idea for Apple came, as usual, from the accountants, who told them, ‘You must diversify.’ So Brian had set up a company called Apple Publishing, that’s all it was, a little music publishing company.” Lennon went further in a 1972 interview, saying, “Originally, we didn’t even want an Apple. Clive Epstein (Brian’s brother) told us like, he had every few years, ‘If you don’t do this, it’ll go into taxes.’ So we really didn’t want to go into fucking business, but we thought, ‘If we have to go in, let’s go in doing something we like.’”  
  
The Beatles certainly moved to get things off the ground, starting with the Apple Boutique, a retailer on London’s Baker Street, for selling outfits and other assorted sundries, including albums of what would now be called world music. It opened with a flourish, complete with a dazzling psychedelic mural by the art group The Fool, though citizens’ complaints forced them to repaint it all white. It was however, not profitable from the start due to constant shoplifting by customers and staff, and the band also soon became bored with the shop, folding it on July 31, 1968, only eight months after it opened.  
  
The real work then began in earnest after the May 1968 press conference, as Apple got a headquarters at 3 Savile Row, with a recording studio being built in the basement, the record label on the ground floor, second floor an office for Aspinall and one for each Beatle, and the third floor the press office, domain of the group’s press officer Derek Taylor, who’d been in their circles since 1963 and remained so until his death from cancer in 1997. They put out an ad in magazines saying they were open to receive tapes of burgeoning songwriters, works of poetry, and scripts for films in the mail, that Apple would look through everything without chucking it in the garbage bin, and that if they found the work interesting, they would give seed money to help these aspiring artists build themselves on and contact information for potential followup communication.  
  
Of course, that didn’t work out as well as advertised. As McCartney later admitted, “We never really got much from the sent in tapes, but we let people know we were interested.” Although in fact, they may have actually got even less, as many people who sent in material and got payment from Apple simply took the money and ran, and never bothered to get back in touch with them. Though Apple did manage to find and nurture talent (complete with the band members producing recording sessions) with the likes of Jackie Lomax, Mary Hopkin, Badfinger, Billy Preston, Ravi Shankar, the Modern Jazz Quartet and a young James Taylor, the plain and simple fact was that the label was The Beatles’ domain (for the rest of their career together and even persisting into all four’s early solo work), and nothing really changed in that regard, as even the more notable artists the group discovered didn’t hit critical mass until after they moved on from Apple to other labels, especially Taylor. Lennon moved to get a specialty label, called Zapple Records, which would cover more avant-garde material (including the idea of spoken word recordings, presaging what we now know as “audiobooks”), thanks to the influence of the beginning of his relationship with Yoko Ono, but its output was incredibly slim and sales nonexistent, especially when it was priced like regular albums, against the initial wishes Lennon and McCartney wanted for its product.  
  
As for its other works, the film division had a few notable Beatles works, among them _Magical Mystery Tour, Yellow Submarine,_ the film of _Let It Be_ , and the film of George Harrison’s _Concert for Bangladesh_ , but precious little not tied as Beatles projects. Those they did have include the Marc Bolan/T. Rex concert film _Born to Boogie_ (directed by and featuring Ringo Starr) and the dramedy _Little Malcolm_. The electronics division was put in the control of Yanni Alexis Mardas, better known as Magic Alex, a friend of Lennon, but his designs for home electronics were completely impractical and burned through at least £300,000. The music publishing arm ended up used as a stopgap by Harrison and Starr for emancipation from Northern Songs (the same publishing arm later sold by Dick James to Sir Lew Grade in 1969 to become ATV Music, and then famously purchased by Michael Jackson in 1985) before they founded their own separate publishers, and published some works by other Apple Records artists, but never really stockpiled songs to its arsenal. A book publisher division put extremely few titles.  
  
The novelty of Apple wore off fairly quickly. McCartney constantly popped into the Apple offices, far more than the other Beatles, because “(you) didn’t have to _do_ anything, it wasn’t compulsory.” The company soon became an absolute money pit, with a staff of 40 (including four secretaries for Derek Taylor alone) racking up massive “business expenses” of drugs, alcohol, half-eaten food being wasted and thrown into the garbage, company lunches at expensive restaurants with full meals and cocktails, lengthy international calls on office phones, and employees frequently giving themselves raises. One typist would spend all morning on a letter, then pop out until the next day, other employees would only report to work on payday. Harrison quite pointedly recollected in the _Anthology_ , “we just gave away huge quantities of money…I think John and Paul got carried away with the idea and blew millions, and Ringo and I just had to go along with it…Apple was a free-for-all, with every weirdo in the country heading into Savile Row and being given office space by John and Yoko. The Hare Krishnas, the Hell’s Angels, the Diggers-everybody was in there.”  
  
Already by 1969, the company was in freefall, with gallons of red ink. Lennon went public around the time of the fraught _Let It Be_ sessions, saying, “You can’t offer facilities to poets and charities and filmmakers until you definitely have money coming in. It’s been pie-in-the-sky from the start. We did it all wrong…It’s got to be a business first, we realize that now. It needs a new broom and a lot people need to go, it needs streamlining.” That “new broom” ended up being Allen Klein, the former manager of Donovan and The Rolling Stones, whose mercenary ways had caused (and still do, even after his death in 2009) no end of stress to Jagger, Richards et al., to the point that the band doesn’t own or control their pre- _Sticky Fingers_ discography, even to this day. While Klein certainly did a lot of “streamlining” by laying off personnel, he left greater dissension and acrimony in his wake, especially with The Beatles themselves, due to McCartney refusing to accept his appointment and moving to have Lee Eastman, father of his wife Linda, representing him. The last gasps of The Beatles came shortly thereafter, along with a myriad of legal tangles (including Lennon, Harrison and Starr suing Klein to be free of his pernicious orbit) which were not fully resolved until 1975. Apple Corps has continued to exist since then, after effectively mothballing the various divisions and reorganizing as the controllers of The Beatles as a brand. Aspinall became head of Apple officially at that point, running it until his retirement in 2007, overseeing the initial CD releases of the catalogue, the _Anthology_ project in its various forms, _Let It Be…Naked_ , the Beatles-themed Cirque du Soleil show _LOVE_ , and the beginning stages of the 2009 remaster of the catalog. He also oversaw various lawsuits against the more famous company named Apple regarding trademark infringement and violations of an earlier agreement regarding music (mainly with the release of Apple Inc.’s hugely popular iPod) and battles with EMI. Jeff Jones runs Apple Corps currently, though ownership and full control continues to reside with McCartney, Harrison, Starr and Lennon’s estate via Ono. Since 2007, it has seen the full 2009 remaster campaign, the massively successful video game _The Beatles: Rock Band_ , the recent box set releases of _Sgt. Pepper_ , _The White Album_ , _Abbey Road_ and _Let It Be_ , the Ron Howard documentary _Eight Days a Week: The Touring Years_ , and the Peter Jackson documentary on the _Let It Be_ sessions.  
  
Cut to the late ‘90s. Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain has long been an admitted Beatles fan since boyhood, and was well aware of the various hassles the band went through, especially regarding Apple. After his divorce from Courtney Love and his subsequent romance of Charlize Theron, they discovered many shared interests, including a fondness for manga and anime, and an urge to expand its reach to Western audiences, particularly through film adaptations. The idea of a production company came to them when discussing the ideas of adaptations of _Akira_ and _Ghost in the Shell_.  
  
To get an idea of how to proceed, Cobain and Theron started reading industry trades such as _Variety_ , and looked at the recent success of Mel Gibson and Bruce Davey’s Icon Productions, the so-called Disney Renaissance, the organization of the Disney-owned Pixar Animation Studios, the way that Miramax and its (eventually disgraced) founders Bob and Harvey Weinstein had positioned it especially with finding promising young talent, as well as the tumultuous journey of Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen’s DreamWorks, especially how the latter failed to live up to the bold promises Spielberg made when launching the company in 1994. “Charlize in particular had this yellow notepad to really jot down takeaway lessons from a bunch of different companies,” Cobain said. “A lot of little pointers about what to do, what to avoid, how a certain event could’ve gone better for a company.” Among those companies being dissected were the notable actor-fronted “vanity shingles” that proliferated Hollywood in the ‘90s, but also the likes of Apple Corps, and how it utterly failed to realize its full potential. “The biggest thing we realized was that neither of us has a head for the nitty-gritty details of business, the paperwork hassles, the accounting, the payroll. We needed someone with a firm hand to guide the whole thing from the start. We also needed to ensure a steady stream of cash going in the door from day one, so that we could always pay our overheads. We also didn’t want to tie ourselves to just one studio and be dependent on them, like a lot of these production companies were doing.”  
  
Though Cobain’s Nirvana royalties were definitely coming in by this point and it would certainly be plenty to help get things started, he and Theron wanted to cover their bases. They invested in Planet Hollywood, became close friends with Arnold Schwarzenegger, and also prevailed upon the board to adopt his various proposals to ensure its viability. Both of them became equity investors in the Florida-based fast food chain Miami Subs Pizza & Grill, as well as later taking on a stake in the Roadhouse Grill chain, and helped spearhead aggressive expansion worldwide. They invested in Robert Zemeckis’ massively successful films _What Lies Beneath_ and _Cast Away_ , ensuring massive returns for them both. They gathered additional startup investments from the likes of actor Chris Farley, Alice in Chains members Layne Staley and Jerry Cantrell, Soundgarden frontman Chris Cornell, Stone Temple Pilots frontman Scott Weiland, REM frontman Michael Stipe, venture capitalists Tim Draper and Steve Jurvetson, Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, Apple Inc. co-founder Steve Wozniak, CJ Group/CJ Entertainment heiress Miky Lee, GE CEO Jack Welch, Oracle founder Larry Ellison, Virgin Group founder Richard Branson, Miami Dolphins star quarterback Dan Marino, former Kentucky governor (and fast food chain franchiser) John Y. Brown, Jr., renowned music manager Irving Azoff and Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz. But most importantly, they received both seed money and important tactical advice from movie producers Jerry Weintraub and Jennifer Todd, and also gained both of them, and Azoff, as members of the company. They had $3.6 billion in startup funds, $750 million of which went to buy and develop a massive 1087-acre studio lot for them in Playa Vista, California. (It serves as their main hub of business, though their corporate headquarters is in Toronto.)  
  
Starting with the release of _Ghost in the Shell_ in 2001, Springbok began a runaway train of success in its various fields. Boffo box office, and plenty of awards, including Theron’s Best Actress win for _Monster_ , the 2018 remake of _A Star is Born_ winning Best Original Song for “Shallow”, and Best Picture wins for films like _The Wolf of Wall Street_ and _Bohemian Rhapsody_. A massive group of library acquisitions to really further pad out its resume and revenue from home video, broadcast, pay TV and streaming rights. And even some smaller-rung exhibition ownings to have a leg in that field, as well as give favorable rates to the work of other studios and producers for theatrical runs on their screens.  
  
The founders have attributed much of their success to the crack team they have assembled over their run. A veritable cream of the crop of invaluable experience in the various fields they are interested in, and certainly bold personalities to match. From Pixar, and then later Disney as a whole, they adopted the so-called “brain trust meeting” method, in which writers, producers, directors, and board members will look at projects and discuss them quite frankly in order to assess the state they are in, what can be done to improve them, and how to ensure its best chance for success. This method came first came to existence at Pixar, when Vice Chairman and CCO John Lasseter used it to help shore up the success of projects like the _Toy Story_ franchise. Lasseter also took the method and gave it to Disney as a whole to adopt, which has helped it maintain its massive growth since the ‘90s. Springbok chose to follow its example, which has helped ensure its consistent track record, and inspired newer, smaller companies like Dan Lin’s Rideback Productions to do likewise.  
  
The employees at Springbok, even the most minor members, are obviously a much more diligent and disciplined pair than those in Apple’s run. There is a centralized expense tracking system in place, and perks are distributed in a more meritocratic manner, though each of Springbok’s various offices worldwide make sure to keep morale high and the atmosphere pleasant. “Obviously everyone goes to work and takes it seriously,” Beth Kono, a close friend and assistant of the founders, states. “But we also make it like a game, a competition between friends. We also often put ourselves down, bust each other’s balls, to ensure our heads don’t get too swollen. Staying hungry ensures you never lose sight of your passion.”  
  
Then there’s of course the manner of how often Cobain and Theron come to work and are involved in how the company is run. Naturally, given their respective careers continuing full steam ahead (especially the latter’s continued acting work on non-Springbok projects), they can’t come to the offices every day, and Cobain doesn’t come in as often as his wife due to his constant time writing, recording and performing with Nirvana. But they always work to stay in the loop. “Kurt and Charlize get emails and conference calls just about every day,” Todd states. “They know how our projects are shaping up, give notes about them, and are always in contact with the board members, writers, producers, directors and actors. It especially helps we don’t go overboard with industry jargon, and get right to the point, communicate as directly and simply as possible.”  
  
All this and more helps bring Springbok maintain its massive perch in the industry, including financing of projects that other people will produce, and acts of a sort of business-styled charity, like putting together cash infusions for other production companies, studio reorganizations, and seed money for people starting out, such as when they gave startup funds to actress Margot Robbie to help with the formation of her production company, LuckyChap Entertainment. There is also the founders’ constant work and donations to dozens of charities around the world, as well as doing fundraisers for their own charitable organizations.  
  
Thus, in many ways, while The Beatles’ dream with Apple turned rotten, to use an obvious and cliched analogy, it clearly remained a viable dream to pursue in the future for someone to turn around and do it properly. Springbok ended up being that company, a fulfillment of the original Apple Corps ethos, of mixing business with pleasure.

* * *

"Just Another Day at the Office: The Day-to-Day Life at Springbok Productions", _Forbes_ , January 15, 2020 **  
  
**For the employees of Springbok Productions, every day essentially falls into a basic pattern. “It’s just like any other company,” a secretary replies. “You wake up, shower, dress, get a bite to eat, then report to your station, day in and day out. In my case, I shuttle forth calls between different parts of the company, connect them, forward calls to outside parties and clients, so on and so forth. It’s always buzzing with activity, but even with things running apace, it’s easy to get bored. Sometimes it’s not that far from _The Office_.”  
  
Many would think that since Springbok has asserted itself as a massive powerhouse, with its fingers in all corners of the entertainment industry and raking in untold billions per year, that daily life has a considerable amount of glamour attached to it. “That might be true to an extent,” Beth Kono, a close friend and personal assistant of co-founder Charlize Theron, states quite cheerfully. “But work is work, and drudgery is unavoidable. There’s actually precious little in terms of drama with setting up deals and contracts for projects. Not that there isn’t hustle and bustle in all the wheeling and dealing, but it tends to proceed smoothly.”  
  
Though Springbok’s main corporate headquarters are in a skyscraper in Toronto, it mainly oversees the accounting side and corporate structure. The real hub of activity is in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Playa Vista, near Marina del Rey. Here, a massive nearly 1100-acre studio lot, the first studio lot to be built from scratch since the Great Depression, sits as Springbok’s creative headquarters since 2001. The property was originally planned to be the headquarters for DreamWorks, but founders Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg and the late, disgraced David Geffen abandoned the plan in July 1999 because they couldn’t arrange the financing. Springbok was founded and incorporated by Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain, along with Theron at this exact moment. Using Cobain’s Nirvana royalties, his and Theron’s investments in Planet Hollywood, the fast food chain Miami Subs Pizza & Grill and the films _What Lies Beneath_ and _Cast Away_ ; and the considerable monies put up by a load of different investors in the entertainment industry and business (including two figures also involved as investors for DreamWorks, Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen and CJ Group heiress Miky Lee), Springbok was able to put up the money ($750 million) to take over the Playa Vista lot development and bring it to fruition.  
  
The massive lot is an absolute bustle of activity. It surrounds an eight-acre lake, looking quite bucolic and serene. (To settle concerns local environmental groups, including the Sierra Club, raised about the development, including back when DreamWorks was doing it, Springbok dedicated themselves to reforestation efforts in the area and ensuring buildings did not threaten nearby wetlands and the life inside them.) It is also located at the site of the factory where Howard Hughes built his infamous “Spruce Goose” seaplane in the ‘40s, and the original hangar where it was housed before its one and only flight in 1947 is still standing, converted for new usage as a soundstage. Here 9000 full-time employees call this place home, an area that feels more like a university campus than a standard Hollywood lot. There is ample room on the roads and spaces between buildings for massive trucks, even 18-wheeler semis, to turn easily and fluidly in one motion.  
  
As for the buildings themselves, they are quite a diverse bunch. These include 18 fully-equipped soundstages, a massive costume department, two technical buildings (for editing, screening and post-production work), a building devoted solely as Springbok’s archives (which also hosts their media preservation joint venture Project Phoenix), the separate headquarters for Springbok’s animation division Denver and Delilah Animation, a building hosting Springbok’s joint ventures (the high-resolution mobile audio recording group Serenity Sonics Corporation and film and digital intermediary and conversion group Heaven Research), a commissary, a special recreational area, and the office building, which houses Springbok’s film, television, musical theater and video game divisions, as well as the individual offices of the heads of these divisions. Cobain and Theron have their own offices in this building. Also notably, CEO Jennifer Todd retains her office here, and rarely ventures to Toronto, where the board of directors, which she, Irving Azoff and Michael Ovitz are on, is set up.  
  
Springbok also contains a lot of additional tenants on the lot. Powerhouse television producers Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk have set up their semi-independent vanity shingles here, as does Avi Arad, the former head of Marvel Studios. Tom Cruise’s production company, TC Productions (successor to his Cruise/Wagner Productions, which he did with longtime agent Paula Wagner, who is now on the Springbok board) and Robert Downey, Jr.'s production company with his wife Susan, Team Downey, have office space here as well. Companies like Saban Capital Group, IBM, Miami Subs Pizza & Grill, Silicon Graphics, Industrial Light & Magic, Weta Digital, and special effects firm Digital Domain have office space supplementing their respective main headquarters on this lot. (Springbok also has additional offices not on the lot. An office space on the Disney studio lot in Burbank, which belonged to a company they acquired called Mandeville Films, is dedicated solely to projects Springbok makes that Disney distributes. Springbok contains smaller office spaces on the Paramount, 20th Century Fox (of course now owned by Disney), Warner Bros., Universal, and Sony lots in Hollywood, Burbank, Universal City, Century City and Culver City, dedicated solely to overseeing releases of projects with each of the studios. Springbok has an office space at Blockbuster Entertainment's headquarters in Los Gatos, dedicated to the projects the streamer releases. Denver and Delilah Animation has a secondary office at George Lucas’ Skywalker Ranch, as well as additional offices for Heaven Research. Studio Ghibli North America, formed by Springbok having a 20 percent equity stake of the legendary Japanese animator, has an office on the lot of Pixar Animation Studios in Emeryville, California. Springbok recently opened an additional studio lot in Atlanta, which includes ten soundstages for film and television production, a functional backlot, and an additional office space for Denver and Delilah Animation and the video game division. An additional Denver and Delilah Animation office is located in Vancouver, and was the original office of one of the company's acquisitions, the computer animation company Rainmaker Studios. Springbok’s record label arm, Exploitation Records, is based in New York, in the former Trump Tower, and Springbok’s book publishing division, Autumn Deer Press, is based out in 189 Broadway, along with its recent co-owner, HarperCollins. They also have various headquarters for their foreign divisions, which oversee not only overseas distribution for their projects, but also are involved in the productions of foreign projects meant solely for specific markets, such as for the UK, France, Latin America, Spain, Germany, Italy, India or Australia.) There are also homes, apartment complexes, schools, churches, synagogues, mosques, parks and museums, effectively making the lot a small town. Indeed, many compare this town aspect to the Disney-conceived (and formerly owned) town of Celebration, Florida, which never quite came together to be what was planned. A considerable number of employees live in the town area, to make their commutes to work as short as possible. Cobain and Theron even own an apartment in one of the complexes, to mirror the small apartment Cobain lived in in Olympia, Washington, with his first girlfriend, Tracy Marander, back in the late '80s, as a sort of paean to his young, hungry days. (He even still owns the small, boxy Volvo he temporarily lived in before _Nevermind_ was released, with one bald tire, despite obviously having numerous costlier and newer vehicles at his disposal.)  
  
Springbok’s office building looks very much like any typical corporation, but there are signs that this is not a standard company scattered around, especially in the executive offices. Framed portraits of many of Springbok’s collaborators hang on the walls, as do posters for many of its past projects. A life-size picture of composer and producer Jim Steinman, a wan smile under his silvery mane, dressed head to toe in imposing black leather, is framed by golden light bulbs, with one of Steinman’s designer leathers hanging on a coat rack as a display. “Steve Barton wore that outfit at the workshop for _Dance of the Vampires_ back in May 2001, right before he died,” Leonard Soloway, head of Springbok’s stage theatricals division, muses sadly. “Jim wanted the head vampire, Count von Krolock, to look imposing even in street clothes at the workshop, so he lent this to Steve. Jim let us have it after the show was a success, as a token of thanks.”  
  
There are certain other trinkets on display. Just to name a few, a Harley-Davidson that belonged to Steven Tyler is mounted in the lobby, with a signed note from the Aerosmith frontman. In Cobain’s office, there is a framed portrait of Mel Brooks, with the phrase “it’s good to be the king”, from _History of the World-Part I_ embossed in gold. But everyone who works here is never particularly overwhelmed by the collection, treating it all just like it’s nothing more than furniture, an attitude that Todd states ensures that the company doesn’t grow complacent and rest on its laurels.  
  
When it comes to finding and moving on projects, Todd points out there is a very definite process. “Springbok is always bombarded with ideas, be they mere treatments or full-fledged scripts, or just sending books, novels, plays or TV series for us to look at. We get sent upwards of 2000 such items a year, and also receive a lot of design notebooks with storyboards. In order to decide what we will take on, we have a lot of spirited reads, and hold open forums with as many people as possible. They all share their input and give notes about what they think, it’s like holding a test screening or a workshop, except just for an idea and when we’re only relying on our imagination. The main criteria that we keep in mind is this: is this something we can be passionate about, regardless of what the critics say or the box office receipts are? Is this something that we can personally add something to, something that no one else can? And lastly, does it reflect what we’re about?"  
  
When asked as to why she doesn't report to board meetings personally in Toronto that often, Todd is sanguine. "I do Skype, videoconferencing and emails to them all the time. I'm not the only one who doesn't go up there, Irv doesn't like to head there that often either. But I also feel that the real board meetings tend to be right here on the lot, with the different division heads, to talk over our projects, so I like to attend them personally. There's a lot of hustle and bustle going on here, and you'd be surprised how often things cook. Of course, Kurt and Charlize, because of their careers, don't come here in person that often, but they stay informed and report in through some means every day. They're fully aware of what we're doing, and everything has an approval process. Essentially, we don't do anything unless the two of them say yes to it."

Springbok has done massive studio tentpoles, with one or more studios doing the distribution and paying the budgets; and they've also done indie films, including films that they've launched presales with different smaller individual distributors on a territory by territory basis, using the film festivals and markets to buy and sell projects. They've even done presales for smaller distributors when having a major studio have the North American/UK/Australasian rights, implementing a hybrid strategy. "We do whatever suits the project best, linking with whatever partner will bring the best out of the work. We have done major releases, mini-majors, indies, smaller people, and preselling. Our foreign sales and acquisitions division has certainly gotten much work done over the years, especially when we go trawling Sundance, Tribeca, Toronto, Berlin, Cannes, Venice, Tokyo, and the American Film Market."  
  
Regarding Springbok's foreign divisions and the projects they do for those certain territories, there is a lot more latitude given from the Playa Vista lot. "We don't want to be babysitters, controlling what everyone does there. I mean, I know virtually nothing about Italian cinema or Bollywood, or about what kind of native stories Mexico wants to see in the Spanish language. So the division heads there, when it comes to developing fare specially for those markets, have the final say about what they'll do, casting, scripts, budgets and distribution. Occasionally they'll check in with us, but it's more of just for progress reports or to see the finished product. When it comes to distribution and scheduling of our worldwide films, however, that's a different story. For example, say you have something like _1917_ , and you have to also plan out the release schedules in other territories, get the box office receipts there, plan out the marketing. There, the lot offices here are very involved in the planning."  
  
Springbok also does internships, incubation and project development programs, not necessarily for material they will produce or even finance. "Giving back, having people get a leg up in this business is very important. It's much with our seed money, cash infusion and other such deals for other studios and production companies. We've also looked to find and harness individual talent and nurture it. Charlize, for example, has always had a bee in her bonnet of finding promising talent in South Africa, so she helped us find people like Sharlto Copley and Neill Blomkamp and give them an in. The work has certainly paid off, as I'd say that 60 percent of the projects in our incubators have found buyers and brought to life on the big and small screens, and the vast majority of them aren't even ones that we've produced or financed ourselves."  
  
One might naturally wonder if Springbok has anything left to prove at this point. "I think so," Todd says. "We've still only just begun."  
  
Special Addendum: Inside Springbok's Technical Buildings  
  
Springbok's Technical Buildings and Archives are quite expansive, especially regarding the way that the company has kept a foot in both the analog and digital filmmaking styles throughout its career. During its existence, it has done analog projects on Panavision, Arri or Fujifilm 16 mm, 35 mm and 70 mm cameras and lenses, French Eclair cameras circa 1972, and IMAX Corporation cameras and lenses, using either Kodak or Fujifilm stock. For the digital world, it has used Sony HDF or "CineAlta" cameras (both on their own or as hooked up to the so-called Fusion Camera System devised by filmmaker James Cameron and cinematographer Vince Pace), Sony F23 cameras, Panavision Genesis cameras, Viper FilmStream cameras, Arri Alexa and Alexa Plus cameras, Red One 4K cameras, Red Pro 5K cameras, Red DSMC "Dragon" 6K cameras, and Red DSMC2 "Helium" 8K cameras. Springbok projects have also used equipment such as SpyderCam, CableCam and SkyCam systems.  
  
There is certainly a lot of film stock kept in a cold storage vault, both master negative reels and outtakes, but they also keep an astonishing amount of material in other formats in terms of physical storage. These include 3/4-inch videotape, 1-inch videotape, 2-inch videotape, Umatic, VHS, BetaCam, HDCAM, Laserdisc, DVD, Blu-ray and digital files, including those used for digital projectors in movie theaters. Springbok's projects are edited and/or restored using a mix of vintage and modern equipment, including flatbed Moviola editors (especially Steenbeck editors), FastForward stations, optical scanners/printers, helical scanners, rewash scrubbers, photochemical restoration, wetgate sync restoration, digital sound reproducers, EditDroid stations, Avid and Lightworks DAW stations, Thompson Spirit 4K scanners, ScanMaster 4000 scanners with Digital ICE technology, and RE Scan 6K scanners. There is also a wealth of telecine machines for intermediary and conversion of film to digital, digital to film, video to film, film to video, and so on. This is all done not only for Springbok's own projects, but also for a lot of other parties' work, especially restoration-wise. While most Springbok projects are edited here, they have decamped to other locations, such as Skywalker Ranch, for editing work. All their projects do go to Skywalker Ranch regardless for the final sound mixes at Skywalker Sound and THX, and many have utilized Lucasfilm's visual effects firm, Industrial Light & Magic, for creating visual enhancements.  
  
Springbok has rented itself out or been attached to film restoration projects from other producers, often working hand in glove with other groups like The Criterion Collection, YCM Laboratories, PRO-TEK, Cineon, Image Trends, MPI, Lowery Digital and Vinegar Syndrome, as well as The George Eastman House, the UCLA Film and Television Archive, the Library of Congress and the in-house restoration units of the major studios. Chief among its latest restoration works is _The Godfather Trilogy 1901-1980_ , a 1992 home video release which featured deleted scenes re-inserted into the films (based on a 1980 TV broadcast version of the first two films), though everything now occurred chronologically in the timeline, meaning that the prequel scenes of _The Godfather Part II_ would now occur first in this version. This version has not had an official release outside of the '92 VHS box set, but Springbok is helping Paramount and Francis Ford Coppola bring it back to life. "After Francis and Paramount did the restoration of the original master negatives in 2007 for DVD and Blu-ray, it helped give us a point to jump in from, especially with half the work done already. Of course, some the material has been lost since the 1992 VHS set, both in original negatives and even duplicates, so to fill in the gaps, we have to go back and simply use the VHS material, give it to a firm that has done conversion work on VHS tapes to bring them up to the best quality available, they've done this work for NASA tapes and the DVD/Blu-ray release of Michael Jackson's Wembley Stadium concerts in 1988, during the Bad Tour, which came from Michael's personal VHS copy, because the original Umatic masters have been lost." In a surprising act, Springbok even proceeds to help preservation and restoration of Troma Entertainment titles, and even used their positions at the AFI and The Film Foundation to get Troma's founder, Lloyd Kaufman, into both organizations. Furthermore, Springbok has also lobbied Congress to create a permanent federal stipend and nationalized restoration division, to finally help these various organizations work freely without the burden of relying on previous limited grants and private donations.  
  
These buildings and a museum in the town area also contain various different methods of writing scripts, news articles, books and magazines. Namely typewriters, computers of varying brand and vintage from 1976 to now, linotype operators, and varying printing presses of different eras. These are done for movie shoots, for demonstrations, creating memorandums to spread among the staff, and even helping create products for release by Autumn Deer Press. "We're living and making history as we go along, giving homage and respect to the old, using it along with the new."

* * *

"Blockbuster To Spin Off Rental and Streaming Divisions", Bloomberg News, January 21, 2020 **  
  
**In a settlement with the federal government over a potential antitrust lawsuit, Blockbuster Video decided to spin off its eponymous rental division from its streaming service, Blockbuster Entertainment, as separate companies. Blockbuster Entertainment will be allowed to keep its massive library of film and television content, including original content created just for the service, fully intact, and it will have no say or share in the profits of the rental division.  
  
"This is a decision that we all are quite happy with," Blockbuster Entertainment founder and head Reed Hastings stated. "Now the future of Blockbuster is in safe hands and better suited as separate companies. The future is looking quite prosperous for all of us, and for the consumer at large."  
  
In addition to the spinning off of the companies, Blockbuster Entertainment will allow the sale of different packages of content, for those who don't want to utilize the full library. These package deals, only $6 a month, will focus on certain groups of content. These include the "Originals Package" that only allows the viewer to see the group of original content created solely for the service, "Disney+" for all content owned and controlled by The Walt Disney Company and its various subsidiaries, "Peacock" for NBCUniversal content, "HBO Max" for Time Warner content, "Paramount Plus" for the ViacomCBS group, and so on. These will offered in addition to the newly-renamed "Blockbuster Night" standard package of the full library for $15 a month or $60 a year.

* * *

"Trans World Entertainment To Purchase Canada's Sunrise Records," _Billboard_ , January 23, 2020

Trans World Entertainment, the American-based entertainment media retail conglomerate, has announced that it will purchase Canada's Sunrise Records for $663 million. TWE, which owns a massive array of thousands of stores across the United States with the FYE, Sam Goody, Coconut's, Camelot Music, Wherehouse Entertainment, Peaches, Spec's Music and Suncoast Motion Picture Company imprints, will now have access to Canada's largest independent record store retailer, as well as the venerated British imprint HMV, which Sunrise bought last year. This will bring TWE's operations into Canada and the UK, and bring forward a plan to expand their brands worldwide, alongside rebranding certain sites in America as Sunrise or HMV stores.

Alongside the likes of Barnes & Noble, Borders, the remaining Tower Records and Tower Video in West Hollywood, Virgin Megastore, GameStop, Blockbuster Video and Family Video, TWE's stores and operations continue to have brisk sales and business even with the shift to online retail and digital sales and streaming of music, movies and books. This is mainly because, unlike certain other retailers and dying malls because of overexpansion (who ended up culled in what has been dubbed the "retail apocalypse"), they were quick to embrace the digital revolution in its infancy, and also make their brick-and-mortar businesses more inviting to customers, providing a full experience that couldn't be received elsewhere, strengthening relationships not just with the healthy surviving malls, but to create free-standing stores throughout, even massive "megastores" with multiple levels, ample storage, food and other amenities, and other assorted bells and whistles. Special promotions were also made to help drum up business, especially in-store appearances by various celebrities and artists. TWE has staked a considerable place for itself, with their stores containing massive amounts and deep cuts of CDs, vinyl, DVDs, Blu-rays, video games and consoles, T-shirts, posters, Funko Pop figures, novelty snacks, and in certain locations, books and magazines. Some freestanding stores and "megastores" also contain the likes of Starbucks, Miami Subs Pizza & Grill, Donatos Pizza, Chipotle Mexican Grill, McDonald's, Dunkin' Donuts, Baskin-Robbins and/or Little Caesars' Pizza.

* * *

"Fred Silverman Dead: TV Exec Who Led Programming at All Three Networks and Springbok, Dies at 82," by Paula Bernstein, _Variety_ , January 30, 2020  
  
Fred Silverman, the executive who became the only person in TV history to have headed programming for each of the Big Three broadcast networks and who also ended up a massive player in Springbok Productions' TV work, died on Thursday at his home in the Pacific Palisades, California. He was 82.  
  
Silverman died with his family by his side. ABC and CBS paid tribute to Silverman at the start of primetime on Thursday night with slate cards noting his passing. Springbok blacked out its website to mourn him, and posted a tribute picture as the opening image for all who brought up the site.  
  
During his prolific career, Silverman was credited with helping to launch some of the most successful shows and miniseries of all time, including _All in the Family_ , _The Mary Tyler Moore Show_ , _Happy Days_ , _The Waltons_ and _Roots_.  
  
After turning both CBS and ABC around in the ratings, Silverman failed to work his magic at NBC in the late 1970s and early ’80s. Once he left the Peacock net to branch out on his own with the Fred Silverman Co., Silverman forged another career as a producer, turning out a number of successful series, including _Matlock_ , _In the Heat of the Night_ , _Jake and the Fatman_ and _Diagnosis Murder_. In 2010, he joined Springbok's TV division, and became credited among such successful broadcast and streaming series as _American Horror Story, American Crime Story, Feud, BoJack Horseman, Mindhunter, The Haunting of Hill House, Rick and Morty_ and _Roger Rabbit's Toontown Follies_.  
  
“Fred Silverman was a titan of the media industry and an influence on so many,” said CBS Entertainment president Kelly Kahl, who was close to the executive who once sat in his seat at the Eye. “His impact on television was incalculable. All of us at CBS salute his tremendous talent and cultural influence at our network, and throughout broadcast television.”  
  
Legendary producer Norman Lear, the shepherd of _All in the Family_ , the ground-breaking comedy series that established Silverman’s bona fides as a bold programming executive, hailed the executive in a tweet.  
  
“There would be no _All in the Family_ , or _Maude_ , or _The Jeffersons_ , or _Good Times_ without Fred Silverman. Bless his every memory,” Lear wrote on Thursday.  
  
"Fred Silverman was a great member of our team, and he brought real class to our TV projects," Springbok CEO Jennifer Todd said. "It's a sadder place without him, especially after losing a few key family members already." (Springbok also recently lost legendary film producer Robert Evans due to his death last year, and key executive Michael De Luca is departing to lead MGM, which altogether marks Springbok's first ever losses of key executives.)  
  
An often controversial figure, Silverman was revered by some for his natural ability to predict what the country wanted to see and reviled by others for programs that were seen as appealing to the lowest common denominator.  
  
After rising for seven years at CBS, Silverman was promoted to VP of programming in 1970. He helped the network transition away from its rural-oriented series to more sophisticated comedies and dramas, which would attract more upscale and more urban audiences that would have greater appeal to advertisers; the axing of shows such as _Petticoat Junction_ and _Green Acres_ was dubbed the “rural purge.” During his tenure at CBS, he was behind the launch of some of the most successful and respected shows of all time, including _Maude_ , _The Bob Newhart Show_ , _Mannix_ and _Hawaii Five-0_.  
  
Silverman also revamped CBS’ Saturday-morning cartoon lineup and, as a result, helped the network catapult itself from third place to first in that daypart.  
  
But Silverman never felt comfortable at CBS and believed that CBS chairman William Paley didn’t appreciate his programming talent.  
  
“The top management was never satisfied. If I went to Paley and said, ‘We have nine of the top 10 shows in the daytime,’ he would say, ‘God, that 10th show. Isn’t there anything you can do about that 10th show?’ Good was not good enough. Great was not good enough,” Silverman told the _Los Angeles Times_ in 1996.  
  
Silverman jumped to ABC in 1975. As president of the network’s entertainment division, he was responsible for programming _Rich Man, Poor Man_ , _Roots, Charlie’s Angels_ and _Starsky & Hutch_. Famously, Silverman suggested to the producers of _Happy Days_ that the Fonzie character be the focal point of the show. That suggestion contributed significantly to the show’s ratings success.  
  
In 1977, Silverman was featured on the cover of _Time_ magazine as the “man with the golden gut,” referring to his ability to know what shows would strike a chord with the public. In just three years, Silverman had reversed ABC’s flagging fortunes, boosting the network from third place to first in the ratings with programs such as _Laverne and Shirley_ and _Three’s Company_. Though he had brought more sophisticated programming to CBS, he was credited with — or derided for — bringing to ABC what was dubbed “jiggle TV,” programming that made prominent use of scantily clad women to score in the ratings including _Charlie’s Angels_ and _Three’s Company_.  
  
Silverman told the Television Academy that the high point of his career came at ABC in the wake of _Roots_.  
  
“ _Roots_ was a risk. Who knew whether people were going to be interested? It was about slavery. I didn’t know,” Silverman told the Television Academy as he was inducted into its Hall of Fame in 1999. “But we had the biggest ratings not only for _Roots_ , but also for our regular primetime schedule, and daytime was number one! You know, they talk about Camelot. It just doesn’t get a hell of a lot better than that.”  
  
With ABC firmly ensconced as the No. 1 network, Silverman was looking for a bigger challenge. NBC lured him with the title of president and CEO. He boldly predicted that the Peacock would be No. 1 by Christmas, but he couldn’t deliver. Aside from _Diff’rent Strokes_ , few of the shows developed under Silverman at NBC seemed to work. The network was further hurt by the American boycott of the 1980 Moscow Olympics, which NBC had counted on airing.  
  
As president and CEO of the entire network, rather than just entertainment programming, Silverman had responsibilities for sports, news, radio and other areas, and he was spread thin. One of his smartest decisions was to hire a hotshot young TV executive out of Chicago — Brandon Tartikoff — as president of the network’s entertainment division in 1978.  
  
In 1981, NBC fell to its lowest ratings ever. MTM Enterprises chief Grant Tinker was recruited to replace Silverman. Tinker would preside over a remarkable rebound at NBC with Tartikoff’s help.  
  
Rather than program shows elsewhere, Silverman formed the Fred Silverman Co. and ventured into independent production in the early 1980s with the animated series _Pandemonium_ and _Meatballs and Spaghetti_. With funding from MGM-TV, he moved into primetime and late-night production, serving as exec producer of the syndicated talk show _Thicke of the Night,_ hosted by Alan Thicke. The show was a notorious disaster.  
  
After a number of primetime misfires, Silverman and partner Dean Hargrove found their first success in 1985 with a Perry Mason movie that returned Raymond Burr to the starring role; almost 30 more Mason telepics followed. He continued with the strategy of casting an older actor in a central role in a genre drama with _Matlock_ , starring Andy Griffith; _Jake and the Fatman_ , with William Conrad; _In the Heat of the Night_ , starring Carroll O’Connor; and _Diagnosis Murder_ , featuring Dick Van Dyke. All four series ran for years. Another show from the same mold was _Father Dowling Mysteries_ , starring Tom Bosley, which ran for 44 episodes.  
  
In the wake of the huge success of ABC’s _Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?_ in 2000, Silverman exec produced a revival of the (disgraced) 1950s quiz show _Twenty-One_ for NBC.  
  
After _Diagnosis Murder_ ended its eight-season run in 2001, Silverman exec produced a series of telepics: _Murder Among Friends_ (2001); _A Town Without Pity_ and _Recipe for Murder_ (2002), both featuring Van Dyke in his _Diagnosis Murder_ role; _Without Warning_ (2002); and _Drive Time Murders_ (2006).  
  
In 2010 Silverman appeared in the A&E documentary _The Battle for Late Night_. That same year, he joined Springbok Productions and helped bring its massively ambitious TV slate to achieve its full potential, making it clear that he still had the magic touch.  
  
Born in New York City, Silverman received an undergraduate degree at Syracuse University before going on to receive a Masters in television and theater arts from Ohio State University. In his Masters thesis, he analyzed programming practices at ABC.  
  
The son of a television repairman, Silverman aspired to a career in television from early on. After stints at WGN-TV in Chicago and New York’s WPIX-TV, Silverman became, at age 25, the youngest-ever department head at CBS when he joined the Eye as head of daytime programming in 1963.  
  
Silverman was inducted into the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences’ Hall of Fame in 1999. In later years, Silverman taught courses on television at USC.  
  
He is survived by his wife, Catherine Ann Kihn, whom he married in 1971; a daughter; and a son.  
  
In lieu of flowers, the family requests that contributions be made in his name to the Motion Picture & Television Fund.

* * *

Press conference comments by President Hillary Rodham Clinton, January 31, 2020

The discovery of the SARS-CoV-2 strain of novel coronavirus from Wuhan, China, is deeply alarming, and in consultation with the Centers for Disease Control and the World Health Organization, I have made the following determinations for how we should prepare for the potential worst outcome. Like many other nations, all travel to and from China and the United States will be restricted, with the main exception being epidemiologists on the ground to ascertain the truth of the situation in Wuhan as well as further study on how the virus is contracted and its symptoms. Furthermore, I am issuing a national mandate for the wearing of masks in public, in an effort to slow and limit the spread of the disease as we strongly suspect that it is transmissible by being airborne. In public, there will also be a minimum mandatory distance of six feet between each person to further restrict the spread of the disease. The CDC is also unveiling a massive, sweeping program of testing and contact tracing cases of infection, to determine the state of the virus in our country. For now, other than that, life will continue to proceed as normal, and if any further changes should arise, we will promptly inform the public. The situation is likely to be fluid and ever-changing, with our knowledge changing day to day, so we will work as best we can to stay on top of things. But with us all working together as one, we will surely get through it. I implore my fellow Americans to take this seriously and know that this too shall pass.

* * *

"Banijay Secures Refinancing Drive to Raise $2.5 Billion for Endemol Shine Acquisition," by Elsa Keslassy, _Variety_ , February 10, 2020  
  
France-based Banijay Group has completed its refinancing drive to raise €2.3 billion ($2.5 billion) for the acquisition of Endemol Shine Group. Banijay announced its $2.2 billion deal for Endemol Shine back in October.  
  
The pact, which is expected to receive anti-trust approval this summer, would make the merged entity the largest non-U.S. player in the market, with a bigger catalog than the main U.K. players, BBC Studios and ITV Studios.  
  
“Following positive feedback from the investor community, the business was oversubscribed and raised the full investment across Euros and U.S. Dollars with a maturity of five years; the necessary funds to re-finance the group’s existing debt, as well as that of ESG,” said Banijay Group in a release.  
  
The company listed the details of the financing, including €575 million senior secured notes due 2025; $403 million senior secured notes due 2025; €400 million senior notes due 2026; €453 million term loan B facility; $460 million term loan B facility; and €170 million (equivalent) multicurrency Revolving Credit Facility.  
  
When announcing the deal, Banijay said it would be financed through a capital increase at Banijay Group and debt financing, including a full refinancing of Banijay and Endemol Shine’s existing debt, supported by Deutsche Bank, Natixis and Société Générale. As of December 2018, Banijay’s and Endemol Shine’s respective debt was approximately $486 million and $1.83 billion.  
  
The combined group will be held by LDH (67.1%), which comprises Financière LOV, De Agostini and Fimalac, the investment company of Marc Ladreit de Lacharrière, and French media giant Vivendi (32.9%).  
  
Together, Banijay and Endemol Shine have interests in more than 100 production companies, including Kudos, Filmlance ( _Caliphate_ ), Rubicon ( _Beforeigners_ ), Diagonal ( _Catherdral of the Sea_ ) on the Endemol Shine side. Flagship Banijay titles include _Versailles_ , _The Inbetweeners_ and _Wife Swap_ , while Endemol has _Big Brother_ , _Hell's Kitchen_ , _Kitchen Nightmares_ , _MasterChef_ , _Black Mirror_ and _Peaky Blinders_.

* * *

"Skydance Media Secures $275 Million Investment from Redbird Capital, CJ Entertainment," by Brent Lang, _Variety_ , February 11, 2020  
  
Skydance Media has secured a $275 million strategic investment from RedBird Capital Partners and CJ Entertainment and Merchandising. The company said the equity infusion raises its valuation to $2.3 billion. The news comes 48 hours after _Parasite,_ the South Korean thriller that CJ financed, picked up a best picture Oscar. CJ is hoping that the pact will help it expand into the US market and will strengthen its ties to Hollywood.  
  
Skydance is overseen by David Ellison, the son of Oracle founder Larry Ellison and the brother of Annapurna founder Megan Ellison. The company has produced hits such as _World War Z_ , _True Grit_ , _Mission: Impossible – Fallout_ and the modestly financially successful _Terminator: Dark Fate_ , but struck out with last fall’s _Gemini Man_. Its upcoming films include _Top Gun: Maverick_ , a long-gestating sequel to _Top Gun_ that puts Tom Cruise back in the cockpit, and _Without Remorse_ , a thriller starring Michael B. Jordan. Skydance’s current investor base, which includes the Ellison family, Springbok Productions (which provided startup seed money for both it and Annapurna Pictures and has done multiple projects with both companies) and Tencent Holdings, was also included in the investment round.  
  
RedBird Capital led the investment round. The venture capital firm has invested in several sectors, such as media and energy. Its portfolio includes YES Network, On Location Experiences and Lambda Energy Resources.  
  
CJ is a sprawling South Korean conglomerate that has businesses in everything from food service and ownership of the electronics company Samsung to biotechnology. Its holdings include CJ ENM, its entertainment and retail arm, and Studio Dragon, a production, marketing and distribution company. Heiress to the fortune, Miky Lee, has also provided startup investments for other production companies and studios in the past, including DreamWorks and Springbok. The goal is for the companies to collaborate with Skydance to tap the studios’ libraries of films, shows, music, live entertainment, and games to create content that appeals to global audiences. The global success of _Parasite_ , which grossed $166 million worldwide, demonstrates the popular appeal of Korean stories.  
  
“We are honored to partner with RedBird Capital and CJ ENM. These are sophisticated strategic partners who believe in our creative vision and our ambitious strategy to build the studio of the future,” said Ellison and Skydance Media president and COO Jesse Sisgold, in a joint statement.  
  
Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC acted as financial adviser and Latham & Watkins LLP acted as legal adviser to Skydance. The Raine Group acted as financial adviser and Paul Hastings LLP acted as legal adviser to CJ ENM.

* * *

"The Beatles' Music (Partially) Reclaimed, New Ownership Stakes Distributed," PRNewswire, February 14, 2020 **  
  
**LONDON and NEW YORK- After a long and stressful period and intense negotiations, The Beatles' music once again has say over its usage and royalty payments by and to The Beatles. Apple Corps Ltd., Sony Music, Universal Music Group, Calderstone Productions, and Michael Jackson firmly announce that a new ownership distribution system and payment has been hammered out for the benefit of all parties. Sony Music will officially sell off the Lennon-McCartney and early Harrison catalog, cleaving them from the larger Sony/ATV Publishing catalog, the largest musical catalog in the world, with over 4.5 million songs. Sony will maintain the rest of the non-Beatles songs, and keep them under the Sony/ATV umbrella, while The Beatles' music publishing shall revert to its original pre-1969 name of Northern Songs.  
  
Under the new system, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Ringo Starr and Yoko Ono Lennon will together own a combined 25 percent stake in the catalog, the first time that The Beatles have an ownership stake, receive royalties, and have a say in how the catalog is exploited since 1969. Sony Music will sell its remaining 25 percent stake to UMG, which owns The Beatles' longtime (together and solo material) record labels, EMI/Parlophone Records worldwide and Capitol Records for North America, and put The Beatles' released assets into a group called Calderstone Productions, to keep things firmly under one umbrella. Michael Jackson, who bought the catalog in 1985 and has maintained a 50 percent stake since 1995, will continue to maintain his stake and become the largest shareholder. The combined costs for Sony selling its stake of The Beatles' music come to $663 million.  
  
"I am very pleased with the deal we have struck," said Apple Corps Ltd. CEO Jeff Jones. "For too long, everyone has been making money on The Beatles' music except The Beatles. A 50-year injustice has been rectified, and we managed to craft a deal all of us could reasonably live with."  
  
"I have been waiting forever for a chance to reclaim our music," said Paul McCartney. "Now I can rest easy knowing that these songs are finally home, even if we still have to share them with others."  
  
"This is a great deal for The Beatles, for Sony, for UMG, for Michael, and for John," said Yoko Ono Lennon. "He would be pleased to know that we arranged for his songs to return to where they are meant to be, and that Paul, George and Ringo are also taken care of."  
  
"Consider me a happy camper," said George Harrison. "It's quite an honor to have my early songs back."  
  
"It's a good thing this is finally over, so now we can have fun," said Ringo Starr. "The best thing about The Beatles is that they were fun."  
  
"I am quite proud, and UMG is proud, to take on and represent this extraordinary wealth of music," said Interscope Records and UMG CEO John Janick. "UMG have been proud custodians of The Beatles' albums for more than a decade, continuing the great work that EMI and Capitol Records, and Apple Corps have done since the beginning. This is a great new chapter in the history of The Beatles, and I am honored to be witness to it."  
  
"I am happy and sincerely grateful for this deal," said Michael Jackson. "I have been quite honored to call The Beatles' family group my friends, and I am especially grateful to Paul for the work we have done together, and for imprinting words of wisdom that have stayed with me ever since. May this next phase of our relationship together be a magical one."  
  
Over the course of a decade, The Beatles released music considered by many to be the absolute greatest of all time, growing from strength to strength and blazing new trails with each successive release. After their 1970 breakup, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr kept audiences worldwide entranced by their solo albums and concerts. In the 1980s, The Beatles' albums were released on CD for the first time. In 1994, _The Beatles Live at the BBC_ was released, shining a light on their live musicianship and longstanding relationship with "The Beeb", and which later sparked a sequel album, _On Air-Live at the BBC, Volume 2_ in 2013. In 1995 and 1996, _The Beatles Anthology_ , the telling of their own story in documentary form (and a later book version in 2000), along with three double albums of demos and outtakes, were released to a massively hungry public, which made The Beatles break all their own records. The surviving Beatles also came together to finish two incomplete John Lennon compositions, "Free As A Bird" and "Real Love", and release them as new Beatles songs, achieving fans' ardent desires to reunite the band. The songs were well-received by fans and gave the band a "proper" swan song. The year 2000 brought the compilation _1_ , which promptly rocketed to the top of every worldwide chart, as did a 2015 remixed version, including DVDs and Blu-rays of The Beatles' promotional clips/music videos together in one package. In 2003, _Let It Be...Naked_ , a new version of the final released studio album, shorn of the polarizing additional overdubs by Phil Spector, was released, giving new insight into these songs. Premiering in 2006, the Cirque du Soleil show _The Beatles: LOVE_ achieved massive acclaim and ticket sales, becoming one of the trademark shows on the Las Vegas Strip. The 2009 remastering of their entire catalog and release of _The Beatles: Rock Band_ brought their music to new generations of fans. The 50th anniversary box sets of their later albums, new documentary releases from the likes of Ron Howard and Peter Jackson, and the remastering and wide release of the live album _The Beatles: Live at the Hollywood Bowl_ have also kept The Beatles' music alive and showed the world that "all you need is love." As the late Derek Taylor once observed, The Beatles' reputation remains "intact to infinity," and this new chapter will keep that going.

* * *

"Entertainment One Commits to Drama: 'Hasbro Bought the Business to Expand It.'" by Manori Ravindran, _Variety,_ February 17, 2020  
  
 _Sharp Objects_ and _Run_ producer-distributor Entertainment One is reassuring partners of its commitment to drama following its acquisition by toy giant Hasbro.  
  
EOne has always cultivated a strong set of procedurals, such as ABC’s Nathan Fillion-starrer _The Rookie_ and Fox’s Stephen Dorff-led _Deputy_ , but has also gained traction with cable propositions such as HBO’s _Sharp Objects_ and the forthcoming thriller _Run_ from _Fleabag_ creator Phoebe Waller-Bridge, who both produces and stars. It was also known as a producer and/or distributor of many notable dramatic films such as _12 Years a Slave_ and _The Light Between Oceans_ , and also became a key member of Steven Spielberg's Amblin Partners.  
  
However, following Hasbro's shock $3.8 billion all-cash deal for the business – an acquisition that made sense from a kids’ content perspective given eOne’s lucrative _Peppa Pig_ franchise and _PJ Masks_ property – alarm bells rang around eOne’s future prospects in scripted drama.  
  
Now that the deal has closed, senior eOne TV execs – who last week hosted global buyers in London for the firm’s annual UK Screenings event – are assuaging fears about the company’s post-Hasbro pipeline, and communicating that the scripted strategy remains intact.  
  
Noel Hedges, executive VP of acquisitions for eOne, tells Variety: “Drama is a huge part of eOne’s business and Hasbro bought the business not to shrink it, but expand it.”  
  
At the London showcase, executives were telling international partners, including broadcasters and streamers, that “things aren’t going to change.”  
  
“If anything, eOne is now supported by a very complementary business. We will support Hasbro’s in-house IP and now find ways of bringing that to screen internally,” explains Hedges, adding that third-party deals with producers are also unaffected.  
  
“(Hasbro) wants eOne to thrive, and from a distribution POV, they want us to be the portal through which we can take that content to the world.”  
  
Hasbro will use eOne to leverage brands such as _Dungeons and Dragons_ , _GI Joe_ , _Transformers_ , _Monopoly_ , _Clue_ , _Furby_ , _My Little Pony_ and _Action Man_ , among others.  
  
Hedges notes that, “Even if it’s a kids brand, it could be integrated into a cross-generational family (offering). Hasbro is a family business but there is a lot there that isn’t just in the kids space.”  
  
Pancho Mansfield, president of global scripted programming for eOne, adds that the business will take “special care” to curate Hasbro IP.  
  
“They have more than 1500 brands and some of them already existed in some form or another, while (others) we are now developing. We are figuring out the right way to bring them to life.”  
  
Feature films such as a new _Transformers_ installment and _GI Joe_ movie, both with Paramount, are on the way, says Mansfield, although TV adaptations of Hasbro IP likely won’t air until 2021.  
  
Other eOne projects trotted out to buyers at the UK Screenings showcase include _Call My Agent!_ producers Harold Valentin and Aurélien Larger’s _La Garçonne_ , a historic detective thriller set in 1920s Paris, as well as _Lucifer_ showrunner Sheri Elwood’s Nova Scotia-set family drama _Feudal_. Also on the slate is _Easy A_ writer Bert V. Royal and _The Sinner_ executive producer Michelle Purple’s teen drama _Last Summer_ for Disney-ABC’s Freeform.  
  
Under Hasbro, eOne CEO Darren Throop will report to Hasbro chairman-CEO Brian Goldner. Meanwhile, Olivier Dumont, eOne’s president of family and brands; Steve Bertram, president of film and television; and Chris Taylor, global president of music, will also move to Hasbro and continue to report into Throop.

* * *

"Bob Chapek to Succeed Bob Iger as Disney CEO," by Cynthia Littleton, _Variety_ , February 25, 2020  
  
Bob Chapek, a 27-year Disney veteran who heads the company’s parks division, has been named co-CEO of Disney, and putting him as the man succeeding Bob Iger in short order. The timing of the news and the selection of Chapek came as a big surprise on Tuesday afternoon to many in the entertainment industry.  
  
Iger, ceding sole CEO status, will continue as co-CEO and Disney executive chairman through the end of his contract on Dec. 31, 2024. Disney said Iger would continue to lead the company’s creative endeavors. Chapek takes the helm as co-CEO, but will start taking on a good number of Iger's duties (effectively putting him as the true man in charge, much like how Iger effectively did so for the last few years of his predecessor Michael Eisner's tenure) as of today.  
  
“With the successful launch of Disney’s direct-to-consumer businesses and the integration of 21st Century Fox well underway, I believe this is the optimal time to transition to a new CEO,” Iger said in a statement. “I have the utmost confidence in Bob and look forward to working closely with him over the next 46 months as he assumes this new role and delves deeper into Disney’s multifaceted global businesses and operations, while I continue to focus on the Company’s creative endeavors.”  
  
On the investor call following the announcement, Iger nodded toward the increasingly large and complex company that Disney has become, but said it was the right time to start handing over the reins.  
  
“I felt that with the asset base in place and with our strategy essentially deployed, that I should be spending as much time as possible on, basically, the creative side of our businesses,” he told analysts. “Because with the asset base in place and the strategy in place that becomes the biggest priority. And in thinking about what I want to accomplish before I leave the company between '21 and the end of '24, getting everything right creatively would be the No. 1 goal… It was really that simple. It was not accelerated for any particular reason other than we felt the need was now to make this change.”  
  
The question of who would succeed Iger has been a top topic of speculation in industry circles as well as the broader business arena for several years. Chapek has long been seen as a contender for the job, given his varied experience and long tenure with Disney, but other Disney executives were seen as having a better shot because of their proximity to high-priority assets for the company.  
  
“I am incredibly honored and humbled to assume the role of CEO of what I truly believe is the greatest company in the world, and to lead our exceptionally talented and dedicated cast members and employees,” Chapek said. “Bob Iger, and Michael Eisner before him, built Disney into the most admired and successful media and entertainment company, and I have been lucky to enjoy a front-row seat as a member of his leadership team. I share his commitment to creative excellence, technological innovation and international expansion, and I will continue to embrace these same strategic pillars going forward. Everything we have achieved thus far serves as a solid foundation for further creative storytelling, bold innovation and thoughtful risk-taking.”  
  
Chapek has headed Disney’s theme park division since 2015. In 2018, he was upped to chairman of parks, experiences and products. Before that, Chapek held a range of senior management positions, running consumer products, film distribution and home entertainment at various times. Disney cited Chapek’s success in launching Shanghai Disney Resort and several new gates at Walt Disney World Resort as examples of the skill that won him the promotion to CEO.  
  
Chapek has taken on the formidable task of following the Babe Ruth of media executives. Iger has vastly expanded the size and scope of Disney during his 12 years as CEO, notably with the acquisition of 21st Century Fox in December 2018. The successful launch in November of a new wave of Disney-branded original content for the Blockbuster Entertainment streaming service cemented Iger’s legacy as a bold and innovative leader.  
  
Iger noted that Chapek will be only the seventh chief executive to head the company since its founding in 1923.  
  
“Throughout his career, Bob has led with integrity and conviction, always respecting Disney’s rich legacy while at the same time taking smart, innovative risks for the future,” Iger said. “His success over the past 27 years reflects his visionary leadership and the strong business growth and stellar results he has consistently achieved in his roles at Parks, Consumer Products and the Studio.”  
  
Chapek will report to Iger and the Disney board. Susan Arnold, Disney’s lead independent board member, said the board’s decision to promote Chapek to the top job was unanimous.  
  
“Mr. Chapek has shown outstanding leadership and a proven ability to deliver strong results across a wide array of businesses, and his tremendous understanding of the breadth and depth of the Company and appreciation for the special connection between Disney and its consumers makes him the perfect choice as the next CEO,” Arnold said.  
  
Arnold also had words of praise for Iger, who she called “one of the world’s most esteemed and successful business leaders.” She credited Iger with having “continued Michael Eisner's work and both of them transformed The Walt Disney Company, building on the Company’s history of great storytelling with the acquisitions of ABC, Fox Family Entertainment, the original Saban Entertainment and _Power Rangers_ , Pixar, Marvel, Lucasfilm and 21st Century Fox and increasing the Company’s market capitalization twelvefold since 1985. Disney has reached unparalleled financial and creative heights thanks to Mr. Iger’s strong leadership and clear strategic vision. We believe Mr. Chapek’s leadership and commitment to this strategy will ensure that the Company continues to create significant value for our shareholders in the years ahead.”  
  
Before Chapek joined Disney in 1993, he worked for H.J. Heinz and in advertising for J. Walter Thompson.  
  
Following the news, shares of Disney fell more than 2% in after-hours trade, though the stock pared some of its losses after the investor call came to a close. Shares plunged 3.6% during the regular session amid a broader selloff related to global fears surrounding the spread of coronavirus.  
  
Further reaction from Wall Street is yet to come, as everyone adjusts to the sudden announcement.  
  
“Overall, while management change was expected for some time, we believe the announcement today is likely to raise a number of questions,” wrote Barclays analyst Kannan Venkateshwar in a note Tuesday. “Given the sudden focus on creating content solely for streaming just last quarter and effectively getting a new CEO, it remains to be seen if Disney adjusts its outlook in any way as well as any further changes to the management team that could be announced as a part of this transition.”

* * *

"Bob Bakish: ViacomCBS to Sell Publishing Unit Simon & Schuster," by Brian Steinberg, _Variety_ , March 4, 2020  
  
ViacomCBS is preparing to sell its venerable publishing unit, Simon & Schuster, as the company re-evaluates all its assets in a fast-changing business landscape.  
  
ViacomCBS CEO Bob Bakish told investors Wednesday that the company is taking a hard look at all operations. Simon & Schuster has generated inquiries from prospective buyers in the past, Bakish said during a Q&A held as part of Morgan Stanley’s annual investor conference in San Francisco.  
  
Simon & Schuster “is not a core asset. It is not video-based. It does not have significant connection for our broader business,” Bakish said. “We have had multiple unsolicited inbound calls about that asset, and so as the market stabilizes, we are going to engage in a process” to examine strategic alternatives. ViacomCBS said publishing revenue in 2019 came to $814 million, down 1.3% from $825 million in the prior year. (This fits in with an overall trend, as the combined company has experienced losses in its first two quarters together, as well as considerable layoffs.)  
  
Since merging in late 2019, ViacomCBS has examined whether all of its businesses fit well as the company places more emphasis on streaming video and reaching TV viewers in new ways. Already, the company is working to sell Black Rock, the Eero Saarien-designed skyscraper that served as headquarters to CBS Corp. since opening in 1965. Baskish said the company is in talks with “a set of blue-chip buyers who are engaged in the process,” which he expects to wrap this year. Research firm MoffettNathanson has pegged the value of Simon & Schuster at $1 billion to $1.5 billion. (Supposedly among the prospective buyers is rumored to include Springbok Productions, whose own publishing arm, Autumn Deer Press, has generated and sold many notable titles since 2001, and recently had half of it sold by Springbok to HarperCollins, part of News Corp., to be set up as a joint venture from now on, for $5 billion. Springbok could potentially fuse S&S as a unit of Autumn Deer, and also hitch it to HarperCollins as well in this manner. No one from Autumn Deer or HarperCollins went on record to address these reports.)  
  
In a memo to staffers Wednesday, Simon & Schuster CEO Carolyn Reidy said that the publishing house has “a history of strong and long lasting relationships with our authors, and we will continue to bring important voices to readers around the world, both with our current publishing and our rich backlist of perennially favorite titles."  
  
The publisher’s top authors include the prolific Stephen King and Mary Higgins Clark and the unit has in the past served as a sort of ersatz content pipeline to CBS. Some S&S authors were notable enough to warrant coverage by CBS News properties such as _60 Minutes_. Carolyn Reidy has served as president-CEO since January 2008.  
  
Simon & Schuster has been part of ViacomCBS’ predecessor companies since 1975. The publishing company was founded in 1924 by Richard Simon and M. Lincoln Schuster, and went through numerous iterations before it was sold in 1975 to Gulf + Western, which was then the parent company of Paramount Pictures. Sumner Redstone’s Viacom took over Simon & Schuster as part of its 1994 acquisition of Paramount Communications. Simon & Schuster moved to CBS Corp. in 2006 when Viacom and CBS Corp. were split into two separate companies by Redstone (who acquired CBS in 2000).

* * *

"Star Wars Actor John Boyega Sets Blockbuster Entertainment Deal," by Christopher Vourlias, _Variety_ , March 10, 2020  
  
Star Wars actor John Boyega is partnering with Blockbuster Entertainment through his UpperRoom Productions shingle to develop non-English language films centered on West and East Africa.  
  
The company said on Tuesday that the indie production house founded by the British-Nigerian thesp “will develop film projects based on stories, cast, characters, crew, literary properties, mythology, screenplays and/or other elements in or around African countries.”  
  
The announcement is the latest sign that the streaming giant is upping its stake in original African content. Two weeks ago, chief content officer Ted Sarandos and other high-level executives arrived in Lagos to announce details of their first Nigerian series before traveling to Johannesburg to launch the streamer’s first African original, _Queen Sono_ , a six-part drama co-produced by the South African division of Springbok Productions, which dropped worldwide on Feb. 28.  
  
Two other African originals, the South African teen drama _Blood & Water_ and the animated series _Mama K’s Team 4_ , will premiere later this year.  
  
“Africa has a rich history in storytelling, and for Blockbuster, this partnership with John and UpperRoom presents an opportunity to further our investment in the continent while bringing unique African stories to our members both in Africa and around the world,” said David Kosse, VP of international film at Blockbuster Entertainment.  
  
Boyega, who recently reprised his role as stormtrooper Finn in _Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker_ , co-founded UpperRoom in 2016 to facilitate his first producing credit for _Pacific Rim: Uprising_ , the Universal-Legendary sci-fi tentpole which he co-produced and starred in. Since then, the company has been developing a slate of projects across film and TV, including unscripted content and a potential development deal with Springbok South Africa, with the day-to-day operations overseen by Yara Shaikh, VP of productions.  
  
Last year, Boyega also boarded the South African crime thriller _God Is Good_ as executive producer and is overseeing the movie’s soundtrack through his UpperRoom Records label.  
  
“I am thrilled to partner with Blockbuster to develop a slate of non-English language feature films focused on African stories, and my team and I are excited to develop original material,” said Boyega. “We are proud to grow this arm of our business with a company that shares our vision.”

* * *

Springbok Response To COVID-19 Pandemic, March 12, 2020

In compliance with the latest directives by President Clinton and her administration, the CDC and the WHO, we at Springbok Productions are taking the necessary steps to flatten the curve and do our part to minimize the spread of COVID-19. Therefore, effective immediately, all Springbok offices worldwide shall be instituting a work-at-home order from now until at least early June. All offices shall be left in the hands of skeleton crews to maintain the facilities, continue regular maintenance, and perform deep and intense disinfection to help ensure that a minimum of illness is prevalent here. In addition, we fully support the need to delay some of our projects from their intended release, most notably our and Disney's upcoming feature _Mulan_ , in order to wait for a more opportune time to release the film. Likewise, our staged theatrical ventures for 2020, our work with Disney Theatrical Group's stage transfer of _Hercules_ , the premiere of the Michael Jackson jukebox stage musical _MJ: The Musical_ along with MJJ Productions and Sony's stage theatrical division Columbia Live Stage, the premiere of the Gilbert and Sullivan crossover mashup _Dick Deadeye or Duty Done_ at Playwrights Horizons, and Paul McCartney's stage musical version of _It's a Wonderful Life_ , all of which had been scheduled for this year, have to be postponed. Likewise, it appears that our and Disney's stage transfer of _The Princess and the Frog_ , which has run since 2018, will be forced to close in the interim, without a grand final performance, which is surely disappointing, but our planned Australian production in Sydney is still alive and in the works.  
  
To help maintain that it is largely business as usual, Kurt, Charlize, Jennifer and all executives will be forfeiting their salaries for the entirety of 2020, as well as all stock options scheduled to vest in 2020, and even a third of all stock options scheduled to vest in 2021. With these monies freed up, in addition to the fresh billions received in 2019 for the sales of Springbok's stake in Six Flags New Orleans and half of its stake in Autumn Deer Press, this will enable Springbok to fully protect its payroll, and prevent the need for furloughs or layoffs, or the need to file for unemployment benefits. This will also ensure that Springbok does not need to ask for loans or take on debt in order to remain liquid for the length of the crisis. We are quite confident that we will be able to ride out the storm and emerge safely on the other side.  
  
According to best estimates, by the implementation of a national mask mandate, required hygiene, germ guards everywhere needed, and the observance of social distancing (keep six feet apart), by maintaining all of this (which has been done to some extent already since February), we as a society should be safe to return to life more or less as normal by the beginning of June. Indeed, it has been determined that restaurants, grocery stores, malls, retail outlets, theme parks, gyms, outdoor parks and playgrounds, beaches and pools will be able to continue operating safely during the next few months, especially in implementation of a robust system of testing and contact tracing and temperature checks, much as is happening in South Korea and Japan. However, because of studios exercising caution with regards to films by delaying certain projects' release dates, movie theaters worldwide have no choice but to close, as they cannot operate the next three months with no new product. Likewise, the concert and festival industry will experience staggering losses of up to $9 billion this year, as organizers and insurers simply will not feel remotely safe to go ahead for the rest of the year, feeling that without a vaccine, there is no upside. This will mainly affect road crews, who depend on tours for their paychecks, and small, independent venues like bars, clubs and theaters, for whom live performance is their lifeblood. Sports is also off the table, and to better ensure safety for our children, schools will operating with remote learning at least until January. Broadway and the West End will have to remain completely shut down until 2021, in order to best insure safety for audiences watching live theatre. And there is naturally concern about whether film and television shoots are safe because of fears about infection and how it does not seem possible to maintain social distancing.  
  
As a result, we have been lobbying hard with Congress, the Clinton administration, the UK Parliament and Prime Minister for direct intervention in all these areas, alongside the National Association of Theatre Owners, the Director's Guild of America, the Writer's Guild of America, the Broadway League, SAG-AFTRA, IATSE, the National Independent Venue Association, and various other groups to help keep them alive. We are proud to say that it is successful, leading the first major incentivized arts program since the Works Progress Administration of the New Deal. The plan will involve direct payments (essentially a bailout) to cinema exhibition owners, Broadway theaters, independent venue owners and the various guilds to keep them flush with liquidity, not just for the planned three months, but in case the crisis is prolonged. The option is also open for partially-forgivable seven-year loans either as part of, replacement for, or complementary to the direct assistance. In addition to these untold billions, there is also the option to temporarily nationalize cinemas and Broadway theatres, if it is felt to be needed by the owners/operators. A major insurance war chest will be built for shoots of film and television projects to ensure a restart of work and that it is done safely and comfortably. This will all operate in addition to the massive assistance programs underway with unemployment insurance benefits, direct cash payment surpluses, and a moratorium on rent payments already underway. Furthermore, expect many of our Exploitation Records artists to use webstreams to perform "concerts from home" to entertain audiences starved for live entertainment and also serve as fundraisers for various organizations doing their part in the pandemic.  
  
In addition, we have helped broker a new game plan for exhibition and studios, and the National Association of Theatre Owners when we inevitably return to work as usual, which will hopefully be late May/early June as currently scheduled. Given the nature of how Blockbuster Entertainment, and streaming in general, has seemed to create a predicament regarding box office for studios and theatres, as well as made many people wonder about the viability of the theatrical window even before the pandemic totally upended things and made clear change of some kind was on the horizon regardless, we decided to work in good faith to ensure that that the new normal will be far better and advantageous than what came before. (It also helps that through our ownings of Cobb Theatres and Muvico Theatres in the US, Vue Cinemas in the UK and HOYTS in Australia, we're already NATO members).  
  
The new gameplan calls for relaunching of films newly released and already playing at the time of shutdown ( _Onward, Bloodshot, Emma_ and so on) with a full return to theatres to boost prospects, though early release for digital sale, PVOD and streaming can occur for these films in the meantime for those who can't wait. Then, with the new films that will roll out with reopening, the release strategy is different. The industry standard for an exclusive theatrical window has now been lowered from 72-90 days, down to 60 days. This will ensure that more people who wish to see movies, but don't want to do so immediately, will remember to see the films before they leave theatres. Of course, this is just a baseline, as demand and performance can easily push the film to be in theatres longer on a case-by-case basis, and with the basic idea that a film that makes at least $50 million in opening weekend should be in for a minimum of 31 days. Furthermore, a baseline of prints & advertising for films of all kinds, no matter the genre, length or budget, will be established, in that each film must have a minimum amount of marketing. It also calls upon studios and cinemas to be far more aggressive to ensure maximum visibility for films and better ensure box office success. While this trend has already been happening over the last few decades (thanks in part to Springbok's work in directly marketing its films and ensuring studios' marketing arms work in tandem with outside firms), it has never been put into writing until now. All of this should account for greater ticket sales, box office receipts and concessions.  
  
However, there is also a degree of greater flexibility as well. If after three weeks, a film is underperforming and meets a list of criteria (soon to be established), a film can be pulled from theatres and released early to PVOD or streaming to better ensure a profit. Furthermore, certain films can have a three-week theatrical schedule before a digital or streaming release, if studios, exhibition and Blockbuster Entertainment or digital sales groups meet and work out a strategy in advance. Films can also still have the option of being bought by streaming and PVOD for the original studio to be "made whole" if the studio feels it is in the best interest of the project. For films released in theatres before early digital release, individual exhibitors can take single-digit slices of the proceeds to further boost their revenue for the film. The hope is that this will allow a greater expansion in the types of films that go forward and are released, a wider and more diverse range of choices. Many cinema exhibitors outside of our holdings, including Cineworld, Regal Entertainment Group (Regal Cinemas, Edwards Theatres, United Artists Theatres), AMC/Dalian Wanda Group (including AMC Dine-In Theatres and the Planet Theatres by AMC joint venture with Planet Hollywood), Cinemark (including Century Theatres and Rave Cinemas), Landmark Theatres, Alamo Drafthouse Cinemas, Mann Theatres, Marcus Theatres/BistroPlex, National Amusements/Showcase Cinemas/Showcase SuperLux/Cinema de Lux/Multiplex Cinemas, Santikos Theatres, Studio Movie Grill, Cineplex, Landmark Cinemas, Cinemex, Cinepolis, Village Cinemas, Picturehouse, Yes Planet, Vox Cinemas, Odeon Cinemas, Kineopolis, Dendy Cinemas, Australian Theatres, and the like, will now also allow streaming releases to more readily play on their screens, overcoming much acrimony on both sides. There is also now further opening and pathways for the resurgence and usage again of four-wall distribution, particularly for Blockbuster Entertainment films. We also further helped support Blockbuster's purchase of Graumann's Egyptian Theatre to ensure a ready venue for screening of Blockbuster films, as well as restoration to allow it to be able to screen nitrate, 16 mm, 35 mm, 70 mm and digital films. This is all part of the process adhering to our beliefs that cinema, broadcast TV, cable TV and streaming can successfully and peacefully coexist in harmony, and that a rising tide lifts all boats.  
  
We are confident that this will all help guide us through this unprecedented time and emerge safely on the other end. We're all in this together. See you later!

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"ESPN Plans Two Versions of Much-Anticipated Michael Jordan Documentary," by Brian Steinberg, _Variety_ , April 15, 2020 **  
  
**ESPN will give two spins to _The Last Dance_.  
  
After moving up the premiere date for the much-anticipated documentary series about Michael Jordan and the 1990s Chicago Bulls to this Sunday, ESPN plans to air two versions of the ten-part project: one, with all the athletes’ rough language intact, will air on the company’s flagship cable network; the other, with profanity edited out, will air simultaneously on ESPN2 and ABC.  
  
“We take a lot of pride in sports as a communal viewing experience. All members of the family get to watch this,” says Connor Schell, executive vice president of content at ESPN, in an interview. “We felt this was the right thing to do.” Hearing the unedited interviews, he adds, “makes it feel more honest and more authentic and raw.”  
  
On ESPN, viewers will hear every ‘F,’ ‘MF’ and ‘S.’ On ESPN2 and ABC, those letters (when attached to words that are deemed scurrilous) will be bleeped out or masked by dropped audio.  
  
ESPN fans should not expect to hear Scott Van Pelt break out the F-bombs in the near future or listen to Stephen A. Smith launch into a profanity-laced tirade on the next broadcast of _First Take_. ESPN has long maintained content standards that make its shows appealing to a broad audience, says Schell.  
  
But executives at the Disney-owned sports-media giant wanted to make certain the widest possible audience could take a look at _The Last Dance_ , which has been in the works for several years. Jimmy Pitaro, ESPN’s president and Burke Magnus, ESPN’s executive vice president of programming acquisitions and scheduling, were also involved in the decision, Schell says.  
  
The documentary series premieres on ESPN in the U.S. on Sunday nights over five weeks from April 19 through May 17, and will then be available in full and uncensored worldwide on Blockbuster Entertainment.  
  
 _The Last Dance_ was always going to be a top priority for the company. Directed by Jason Hehir, the series features never-before-seen footage from the Bulls’ 1997-98 season as the team pursued its sixth NBA championship in eight years, and mixes it in with dozens of original interviews with players, coaches and other people who had a first-hand view during that time.  
  
ESPN had previously planned to air it in June, around the NBA Finals, which typically guarantee a sizable audience coming in to sample the network’s schedule. Now, with live sports scuttled by the coronavirus pandemic, _The Last Dance_ offers ESPN a big-audience event that has suddenly become more unique.  
  
“We were really excited about the possibility of airing this in June in the middle of a full, live-event calendar,” says Schell. “But obviously, given the circumstances of the world right now, we were excited to have content that’s this good, and honestly, this important to sports fans to be able to premiere this weekend.”  
  
Executives have scrambled to fill the ESPN schedule with a host of alternate choices, some expected, others offbeat. Viewers in recent weeks have seen plenty of _SportsCenter_ , _Get Up_ and _First Take_ , but also hours of classic sports matches; old Wrestlemania bouts; and even long stretches of spelling bees. They also brushed off the joke-programming block/channel ESPN8-The Ocho, focused on obscure sports, which first appeared as a joke in the film _DodgeBall: A True Underdog Story_.  
  
ESPN has tested crafting different versions of big events in the recent past. Last year, the company aired two different broadcasts of the NFL Draft – one for sports aficionados ran on ESPN, and another, with celebrity guests, dramatic athlete featurettes and co-anchor Robin Roberts, appeared on ABC. Indeed, the 2020 NFL Draft will be televised with similar circumstances, though some of the hoopla will be toned down for the times, according to executives involved with the broadcast.  
  
Executives remain interested in “using our platforms smartly to reach segments of our audience,” says Schell. “We are always looking to innovate, but we’ve never done it with one of our original programs before.”  
  
Above all, ESPN wants fans to have a chance to see the project. Director Hehir “did such an incredible job with the interviews, with 100-plus former players and journalists and participants. He elicited such incredible emotion from them, and we didn’t feel we wanted to distract from any of that,” says Schell. “We wanted to present it as he had created it, and in the words that were spoken in all of those conversations.”

* * *

"An all-access Michael Jordan documentary? How _The Last Dance_ was made possible," by Ramona Shelburne, ESPN.com, April 18, 2020 **  
  
**The pitch was as audacious in 1997 as it would be today. A producer for NBA Entertainment wanted to do an all-access, season-long documentary with Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls as they headed into what was likely to be their final season together.  
  
In the huddles as Phil Jackson coached. Behind closed doors as Michael Jordan barked instructions and four-letter words. In the training room as Scottie Pippen vented about general manager Jerry Krause's publicly humiliating trade discussions involving him. Off the court -- or Atlantic City, in the case of Dennis Rodman, who escaped there and once skipped town in the middle of the Finals to wrestle Hulk Hogan in Detroit.  
  
Asking for this kind of access, with a team with as much controversy and pressure swirling around it as the 1997-98 Bulls, was unprecedented. "I mean, then, as it is now, Michael was one of the most famous people on the planet," said NBA commissioner Adam Silver, who was the head of NBA Entertainment at the time. "And there were rumors that it was going to be Michael's last season."  
  
NBA Entertainment producer Andy Thompson wasn't worried about any of that when he pitched the idea to his bosses, Silver and executive Gregg Winik. "I remember thinking, 'Man, this guy is going to retire,'" Thompson said. "'And we've never really fully documented a year in the life of potentially the greatest athlete in the history of the sport.'" Thompson, the younger brother of Los Angeles Lakers center Mychal Thompson and uncle to future Golden State Warriors guard Klay Thompson, had built a relationship with Jordan and shot several home videos that involved him over the years. But nothing as extensive as this. Nobody had.  
  
But Silver believed in NBAE's mission as the league's archivist, and in opening up the game and its personalities to the world. That meant more than postgame interviews and home videos of championship runs. To do something more, he would have to convince the best team in the league and the best player in the league to let cameras into their inner sanctum.  
  
He started by asking Bulls owner Jerry Reinsdorf, who was open to the idea, but only if Jordan and Jackson were on board. "The coach, at the end of the day, controls the locker room," Silver said. "So we needed Phil's cooperation." You can actually see Silver meeting with Jackson on the steps of the Bulls team hotel in Paris, in Episode 1 of _The Last Dance_ , the 10-part documentary on the 1997-98 Bulls, which begins airing on ESPN at 9 p.m. ET Sunday and continues for the next five weeks. "Phil was great," Silver said. "He got it." As long as Jackson had the ability to wave off Thompson and his cameras from time to time, he was OK with trading some privacy in the name of history.  
  
It took a different approach to convince Jordan, however. "There was no negotiation whatsoever," Silver explained. "All I said was, 'I'm sure there'll maybe be a tough negotiation at some point, but we don't have to have it now.' Because first and foremost, we have to capture the footage." Then he offered Jordan the one thing he couldn't turn down: control. "Our agreement will be that neither one of us can use this footage without the other's permission," Silver told Jordan. "It will be kept -- I mean literally it was physical film -- as a separate part of our Secaucus [New Jersey] library. Our producers won't have access to it. It will only be used with your permission." Now that was something.  
  
Jordan had successfully controlled his likeness since he came into the league in 1984. He was one of two players (fellow David Falk client Patrick Ewing was the other) who opted out of the players' union's group licensing program, figuring correctly they'd make exponentially more by doing their own marketing deals. When he'd sue to enforce that deal, Falk's argument was that the value of Jordan's image became diluted each time it was used. But if Silver was willing to front all of the production costs and give Jordan control over the content, there wasn't much downside. "Worst-case scenario," Silver told Jordan, "you'll have the greatest set of home movies for your kids ever created."  
  
It was a brilliant pitch, and maybe the only one Jordan would have agreed to. When Jordan hit the winning shot in the 1998 NBA Finals to clinch the Bulls' sixth NBA title and second three-peat, Thompson felt he had just shot one of the most incredible sports documentaries ever. "I mean the guy scores 45 points and pretty much won the game by himself," Thompson said. "You couldn't ask for a better ending than that."  
  
But for the next two decades, those home movies -- more than 500 hours of film -- sat in a vault in Secaucus. "I just couldn't understand how it wasn't being made," Thompson said. He had stayed in touch with Jordan after he retired, even considered him a friend. But this wasn't something he could ask him about, much less push him to do. One day, he thought. One day Jordan will be ready.  
  
Every few years a producer would come along, pitching himself as the right person to make the documentary. Frank Marshall, Spike Lee, even actor Danny DeVito (who can be seen in the documentary and of course famously voiced the Krause-inspired villain of _Space Jam_ ) gave it a whirl. According to Jordan's longtime business partner, Curtis Polk, none of them ever even made it to a face-to-face meeting with Jordan.  
  
"When you think of the typical documentaries, before the last five years, they generally ran about 80 minutes," Polk said. "And you couldn't capture this at 80 minutes. Even if you just focused on '97-'98 ... you're not really capturing the totality of it. You're not going to understand what Michael was about or what the Bulls were doing when they were talking about breaking it up." With each "no," the project receded further from view. Fewer and fewer people even knew about it as the years went on. But for the people who did know, the footage took on an almost mythical quality.  
  
Connor Schell was a young development executive at ESPN in 2006 when he first learned that footage of Jordan's last year with the Bulls existed. A contact at NBA Entertainment sent over a rough cut that had been produced in-house in 2003, just to pique his interest, and maybe get a little oxygen for the project. The DVD was mostly a bunch of highlights and behind-the-scenes moments, with a narrator that sounded an awful lot like actor John Cusack but wasn't -- though Cusack was in the film a bunch because he went to a lot of Bulls games and interacted with the players.  
  
"They had made this thing, and I was like, 'OK, the underlying footage and the access they had is amazing, and of course it's freakin' Michael Jordan. So what are you guys going to do with this?'" said Schell, who is now ESPN's executive vice president of content and an executive producer of _The Last Dance_. "And they said, 'We don't know. What would you guys do with it?'" Schell could think of plenty of things to do with it. There was no buy-in from Jordan, however, which meant the project couldn't and wouldn't go anywhere.  
  
But Schell never forgot about the footage. And when he and co-creator Bill Simmons were brainstorming ideas for _30 for 30_ films in 2009, they couldn't get it out of their heads. "I've moved cities and building and offices like five times since I first saw it in 2006, but I still know exactly where that DVD is," Schell said. "It's in the cabinet right behind my desk. I'm picturing it now ... this gold DVD, in this really basic jewel case, and the title is written with a Sharpie. "This Jordan archive is just sitting there, and it's the most desirable archive you could possibly stumble upon. But no one was ever able to bring together all the elements to make it work."  
  
Producer Mike Tollin had known about the footage since Falk appeared as a guest star on an episode of _Arli$$_ , the HBO show about a fictional sports agent that Tollin executive produced from 1996 to 2003. Tollin would go on to do dozens of critically acclaimed documentaries, movies such as _Varsity Blues, Radio_ and _Coach Carter_ , and television series such as _Smallville_ , _One Tree Hill_ , _What I Like About You_ and _All That_. But he never forgot about the unseen footage of Jordan's last year with the Bulls. "It was like a treasure trove," Tollin said.  
  
In February 2016, he saw an opening. "The O.J. [Simpson] documentary had just premiered at Sundance the previous month at eight episodes and like 450 minutes," Tollin said. " _Making a Murderer_ had just premiered on Blockbuster Entertainment at 10 episodes. ... People were now consuming longform documentaries, multipart documentaries. Previously, when longform documentaries like _The Beatles Anthology_ or Ken Burns' _The Civil War_ came out, even though they did well and were enjoyed, people would take breaks and even if they did consume at one point, had to switch their videotapes, DVDs or Blu-ray discs. Now, with streaming, it's instant gratification, and everyone wants to scratch the itch to watch it all, all the time. As a guy who's done documentaries since the '70s, less was always more. And now all of a sudden, more is more."  
  
He talked things over with Springbok Productions, who through their financing division, DADP Holdings, had financed movies, TV series and documentaries made by other producers while having no creative input. Springbok had an in with Jordan, as he was one of their most notable investors, founders Kurt Cobain and Charlize Theron, when they started dating, often attended several games of the '97-'98 season and went backstage to meet Jordan personally, and they'd also helped invested in his range of successful restaurant properties. Springbok said yes to helping finance the film alongside ESPN, NBA Entertainment, and Blockbuster, if Tollin could help get Jordan onboard to do it.  
  
They arranged a meeting with Polk and Estee Portnoy, two of Jordan's most trusted business associates, to make the pitch, with Tollin leading. "So I said to them, 'We could do this as six or eight episodes. So we can see the character arcs play out over the course of all this time. We can see the storylines, we can really dig in and tell the story that nobody's ever really contextualized properly,'" Tollin said. Over the next few months, the conversations continued. Tollin sketched out a proposal of what an eight-episode series might look like. Finally, in June 2016, a meeting was set with Jordan, now owner of the Charlotte Hornets.  
  
"He was preparing for the draft; they knew he'd be there in Charlotte," Tollin recalled. "They knew he hated meetings, so they said, 'Why don't you come and just hang out with us. There will be a break in the action between meetings, and we'll get some time with him?'" Nothing firm. Nothing scheduled. That was about as good as it was going to get.  
  
Tollin hopped on a red-eye from Los Angeles to Charlotte, checked into the Westin hotel around 8 AM and tried to catch a couple of hours of sleep before connecting with Portnoy. "The universe has such a funny sense of humor," Tollin said. "Because when I woke up, I put on ESPN while I'm getting dressed, and there's LeBron [James] and the Cavaliers parading through the streets of Cleveland with the trophy that they'd just won."  
  
He headed over to Jordan's office at the Hornets' arena, hoping he would get a chance to present the lookbook he had made. No one had ever gotten this close before. But Portnoy and Polk could only open the door. Tollin had to close Jordan. "The first page was a letter that I'd written to him," Tollin said. "Dear Michael, every day kids come into my office wearing your shoes, who've never seen you play. "It's time."  
  
Tollin could tell Jordan was engaged, because he stopped for a moment to put on his reading glasses. "I'm thinking to myself, 'Wait, Michael Jordan needs reading glasses?'" Tolin said. "Well, he's 53. That's right. Yeah, OK." Jordan read every page. He looked at the pictures. He read the quotes. Then he smiled as he looked at the eight episode thumbnail sketches. The last page of the presentation was a look at the documentaries, movies and shows Tollin and his company, Mandalay Sports Media, had done. (Tollin has several different production companies, including Tollin/Robbins Productions and AwesomenessTV, as well as having an executive role at Nickelodeon.)  
  
"So there's Kareem [Abdul-Jabbar], there's Hank Aaron, there's _Varsity Blues_ , there's _Coach Carter_ and so forth," Tollin said. "He's actually looking at them all, and in the bottom right corner is 'Iverson.' He goes, 'You did that?'" Tollin didn't answer. Jordan repeated the question. Tollin wondered if this was going to work for or against him. Like the timing with the Cavaliers' championship parade that morning, it was impossible to know. Tollin mumbled a cautious, "Yes." Jordan took his glasses off, looked up and said, "I watched that thing three times. Made me cry. Love that little guy." Then he walked around the desk, extended his hand and said, "Let's do it."  
  
For the past two years, Jason Hehir's job has been to figure out why Jordan was finally ready. Hehir didn't know Jordan when Tollin and Schell offered him the chance to direct the series. But he had read a story by ESPN's Wright Thompson in 2013, in which Jordan said he never saw himself living beyond the age of 50. He figured that was connected. "I discussed [that story] with Michael," Hehir said. "And I think it's because he cannot picture himself as slowing down. He can't picture himself as not being in peak form. So it's not that he had a death wish or that he was morbid; it's just that he couldn't fathom what an old man Michael Jordan would look like."  
  
Doing a documentary, especially one purporting to be a definitive look at him, felt like something an old man would do at the end of his life. "In his defense, the guy's [57]. He's got half his life left to live," Hehir said. "I think he bristles at the notion of any project being definitive because it means his story is over. "He bristles at the notion of a number being hung in the rafters. He bristled at the statue when they put that up while he was on his baseball hiatus."  
  
Former Bulls teammate B.J. Armstrong told Hehir that before Jordan was eligible for the Hall of Fame, he called to ask what the rules on eligibility were. Armstrong, who'd gone on to become a successful player agent, told him it was five years after a player's last game. Jordan then asked, if he checked into a game, and played one play, would it delay his induction another five years? "Michael does not want to be a statue," Hehir said. "He doesn't want to be looked at as something in the past."  
  
Hehir had to understand that to tell this story. It wasn't a precondition or a restriction. It was essential to comprehending the competitive nature and swagger of the man at the center of the story. And it is as true today as it was during his playing career. When Hehir interviewed Jordan's daughter Jasmine, she told him that when she was about to give birth, she asked her father what he wanted to be called? Grandpa? Pops? Grandpops? Jordan thought about it for a moment, then said, "'Have him call me Michael.'"  
  
This desire to control time, or at least try to bend it to his will, is quintessentially Jordan. The man built his persona on outworking and outwilling people. Those were his terms as a player and a teammate. Anyone who couldn't meet them didn't belong on his team. In many ways, those are still his terms. He couldn't control time. But he could control when he allowed someone to tell his story.  
  
So this isn't the definitive documentary about one of the greatest players of all time, Michael Jordan. It's a documentary about one of the greatest teams of all time, the 1997-98 Bulls, with Jordan as a leading character. And he was ready to tell it, right after another player (James) and another team (the Warriors) got dangerously close to challenging those legacies.

* * *

“Inuyasha Series Continues as _Yashahime: Princess Half-Demon_ ", by Patrick Frater, May 11, 2020 **  
  
**Japanese production company Sunrise is to revive the iconic _Inuyasha_ anime franchise and deliver a series called _Yashahime: Princess Half-Demon._ Viz Media has come on board to handle digital streaming rights, electronic sell-through, and home video in North America and Latin American territories. Enima Studios, the anime dubbing and adaptation division of Springbok Productions, has clinched a deal to produce the English dub and to create a live-action film adaptation, as it did with the original series.  
  
Up till now, most of the Japanese film industry has been shut down as a result of the nationwide anti-coronavirus lockdown and social distancing rules. Even with work beginning to resume, no details of the production schedule or delivery date were available.  
  
The _Inuyasha_ franchise first started as a critically acclaimed manga series about a modern Japanese schoolgirl, Kagome Higurashi, who falls through an ancient portal and emerges in Japan’s feudal era, where she meets the embittered and arrogant half-demon Inuyasha, and a series of adventures that followed. The English print version was featured regularly on _The_ _New York Times_ Bestsellers list throughout the 2000s. The anime adaptation, with the English dub produced by Enima Studios, aired on Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim block for five years, and became well-loved by the general public, especially as anime went mainstream. In 2014 and 2015, Paramount Pictures and 20th Century Fox released a two-part live action film adaptation, produced by Enima Studios/Springbok, along with Gale Anne Hurd, Jerry Bruckheimer and Nicolas Cage’s Saturn Films. Cage even starred in both films as the villainous demon Naraku, and both parts were massively successful with critics and at the box office.  
  
The original creator Rumiko Takahashi returns to handle character design. The series is to be directed by Teruo Sato. Katsuyuki Sumisawa is responsible for the screenplay. Yoshihito Hishinuma is responsible for animation character design, and music is from Kaoru Wada. The animation production is by Sunrise, which has worked on many of the _Mobile Suit Gundam_ series movies, _Gintama_ and _Gintama: The Movie_ , and _Tiger and Bunny_. Enima Studios will produce the English dub, as well as a future live-action film version. Paramount and Fox/Disney have already also signed on to reteam with them for the future film, as have Hurd and Bruckheimer. They will be joined there by Seed Productions, the relaunched production company of actor Hugh Jackman and his wife, Deborra-Lee Furness, and Blossom Films, the shingle of actress Nicole Kidman.  
  
The new series focuses on half-demon twins Towa and Setsuna who are separated from each other during a forest fire. The elder wanders into a mysterious tunnel that sends her into present-day Japan, where she is found and raised.  
  
Ten years later, the tunnel that connects the two eras reopens, allowing the two women to be reunited. But the younger one who had been left in the Feudal Era has now become a demon slayer and has lost all memory of her older sister. They are joined by the daughter of Inuyasha and Kagome, and travel between the two eras on an adventure to regain their missing past.  
  
“The _Inuyasha_ universe has been a true pinnacle when it comes to delighting fans of all generations and we’re seeing that now, two decades later, with original _Inuyasha_ episodes still continually airing on Adult Swim, and streaming on Blockbuster Entertainment. We’re excited for fans to revisit this magical world created by the iconic Rumiko Takahashi,” said Brad Woods, CMO of Viz Media in a prepared statement.  
  
“ _Inuyasha_ has long been an absolute source of joy for us, for Kurt (Cobain), Charlize (Theron), and the rest of us. The English dub remains a critical touchstone of bringing anime to the mainstream, and the films also helped bring the story to new waves of fans. We look forward to helping continue the story and also for the film to follow,” said Paula Wagner, key production head at Springbok, and executive producer on both _Inuyasha_ films.

* * *

“Springbok, James Cameron Reorient Plans For Future, Television Projects on the Horizon,” by Matt Donnelly, _Variety_ , May 22, 2020  
  
Springbok Productions and filmmaker James Cameron announced that they are reorienting the future of their non- _Avatar_ projects. Last year, while commencing with principal photography on the _Avatar_ sequel films, they released two additional films that Cameron had helped write and produce, but not direct; _Alita: Battle Angel_ and _Terminator: Dark Fate_ , both of which received positive reviews and were modestly successful at the box office. While they certainly did well enough to justify continuations at the box office, and the narratives of both did tease sequels, the plan has changed.  
  
Springbok and Cameron announced plans for _Terminator: Hope for the Future_ and _Alita_ , both of which are streaming series that will release on Blockbuster Entertainment in late 2021. Cameron’s story bible for the original films, including his _Alita_ script with Laeta Kalogridis will continue to be used, and he will be credited as producer, along with his company Lightstorm Entertainment, for both series, along with partner Jon Landau and Springbok founders Kurt Cobain, Charlize Theron and Jennifer Todd, and 20th Century Fox Television. Charles H. Eglee, one of the writers for _Dark Fate_ , will be showrunner and executive producer for both series along with Jay Firestone, Channing Dungey and Anthony Thomopulous. Skydance Media founders David Ellison and Dana Goldberg along with Paramount Television will be producers on the _Terminator_ show, Robert Rodriguez and Troublemaker Studios will join as producer for _Alita_.  
  
The _Terminator_ series will continue the narrative from _Dark Fate_ , which was the first film in the franchise in a decade, and considered what was needed to rescue it from a past of mediocrity with everything that followed _T2: Judgment Day_. Natalia Reyes, who played Dani Ramos, the future leader of the human resistance, will return for the show. Original series stars Arnold Schwarzenegger and Linda Hamilton will not be present in the show, as _Dark Fate_ was intended to be the swan song for both of them. Though not confirmed, it is strongly rumored that Mackenzie Davis’ augmented super-soldier Grace will return in some capacity, despite her character being killed off at the end of the film. Likewise, there are also strong rumors that Edward Furlong will return as John Connor for the series. Furlong got his start in _T2_ , and did a voiceover-only reprising of the role, as a side figure paralyzed from the waist down for _Dark Fate_. While welcome, it sadly confirmed the public downfall of a promising young actor. Furlong had parlayed his start into reprising the role for the Universal Studios Florida attraction “T2: 3-D Battle Across Time” and in films like _A Home of Our Own_ , _American History X_ , _Detroit Rock City_ and _Animal Factory_ , and also appeared in the music video for Aerosmith’s “Livin’ On the Edge.” However, Furlong self-destructed in a haze of drug addictions and domestic violence arrests, and also frequently appeared in TMZ news reports. Up before his voice-only return for _Dark Fate_ , Furlong’s credit in the industry was virtually nonexistent, as he was completely uninsurable and had to hustle to appear in direct-to-video films to survive. If Furlong does appear, what the extent of his role can be, and what a paralyzed John Connor can do is certainly debatable.  
  
 _Alita_ original stars Rosa Salazar, Christoph Waltz and Jennifer Connelly will be present, as will Michelle Rodriguez, and Edward Norton will appear as the main antagonist. For both series, Eglee’s role as showrunner and main writer will be augmented by several skilled and talented writers. Rene Echevarria, who worked with Eglee and Cameron in the past, will be part of both series, as will Douglas Petrie, known for writing for _Buffy the Vampire Slayer_ and on the Springbok/Ryan Murphy anthology series _American Horror Story_ , and Jessica Sharzer, another _AHS_ alum. Cameron will be creative consultant for both series as well.  
  
“Our decision to move the continuation of the narratives to television makes logical sense,” Cameron said. “Though we could certainly go forward with additional movies, the risk-to-reward ratio shows that this is a better step. Without having to worry about exhibition data and pressure, especially in a streaming environment, to have full creative freedom to unfold the story as you see fit, and to take as much as time as needed to get it all done successfully.”  
  
This is not the first time Cameron has dived into the world of television. Back in 2000, he and Eglee created the Fox series _Dark Angel_ , a dystopian sci-fi series starring Jessica Alba, which received rave reviews but lasted only two seasons due switching time slots in the second one and the ratings nosedived. Also notably, Cameron did not involve Lightstorm Entertainment in that series, and instead created another company, Cameron/Eglee Productions, and this ended up being the sole project by the company. In addition, this is not the first time _Terminator_ has been used for a TV series, as Fox broadcast _Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles_ , which was created and overseen by Josh Friedman, another writer for _Dark Fate_. It also only lasted two seasons due to a sharp decline in ratings. Meanwhile, the _Avatar_ sequels are proceeding for the first one to be released for Christmas 2021, and plans for the future of the _Alien_ franchise beyond the currently running Blockbuster Entertainment series _Alien: Collective_ continue to be mulled over by Springbok, Cameron, Ridley Scott, and Disney, who inherited the IP after their purchase of the Fox assets. Springbok and Cameron/Lightstorm also have plans to make an adaptation of the novel _The Informationist_ and a film about the bombing of Hiroshima.  
  
Springbok has also lined up two more additional TV projects in the pipeline, alongside Annapurna Television. Together, they emerged the winners of a multi-studio bidding war for the rights to _Everything I Never Told You_ , the debut novel from author Celeste Ng.  
  
The company will develop the _New York Times_ best-seller as a limited series, following the release of _Little Fires Everywhere_ , the Reese Witherspoon and Kerry Washington-starring, Springbok co-produced Blockbuster Entertainment drama based on Ng’s novel of the same name.  
  
Ng and Mary Lee of A-Major Media, a production company dedicated to championing Asian American voices in film and TV, will serve as executive producers on the limited series adaptation. Megan Ellison, Sue Naegle, Patrick Chu and Ali Krug will executive produce the project for Annapurna. Firestone, Paul Junger Witt and Tony Thomas will executive produce for Springbok.  
  
UTA and Julie Barer at The Book Group brokered the deal on Ng’s behalf.  
  
 _Everything I Never Told You_ explores the divisions between cultures and the rifts within a family, and uncovering the ways in which mothers and daughters, fathers and sons, and husbands and wives struggle to understand each other over a lifetime. Set in a small town in 1970s Ohio, protagonist Lydia is the adored but put-upon child of Marilyn and James Lee. When her body is found in a local lake, the delicate balancing act that has been keeping the Lee family together is destroyed, sending them into chaos.  
  
Published in 2014 by Penguin Books, _Everything I Never Told You_ became a New York Times Notable Book of 2014, Amazon’s #1 Best Book of 2014 and named a best book of the year by over a dozen publications. The title also won the Massachusetts Book Award, the Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature, the ALA’s Alex Award and the Medici Book Club Prize, and was a finalist for numerous awards, including the Ohioana Award and the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award. It has been translated into over 30 languages.  
  
Annapurna TV and Springbok also snagged another hot property last year, in the scripted rights to the Blockbuster Entertainment documentary _The Staircase_. Harrison Ford is attached to star in the adaptation as novelist Michael Peterson, who was accused of murdering his wife in 2001. Peterson claimed his wife died after falling down the stairs at their home, but police suspected he bludgeoned her to death and staged the scene to look like an accident.

* * *

“MGM Signs New First-Look Production Deal With Springbok,” by Brent Lang, _Variety_ , June 9, 2020  
  
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer has closed a first look production deal with Springbok Productions, the company founded by Kurt Cobain, Charlize Theron and Jennifer Todd, who has also been known as the producer of _Alice In Wonderland_ and _Memento_.  
  
There have been murmurs that Springbok, or to be more accurate, Todd, was going to ally herself with MGM for months. She has a long-standing business relationship with Michael De Luca, who took over as MGM’s Film Group chairman in January. The pair worked together when De Luca oversaw New Line Pictures in the 1990’s, producing hits such as _Boiler Room_ and the _Austin Powers_ franchise. When Todd helped found Springbok and assumed the position of CEO, among the numerous skilled executive hires was De Luca, who held his chair from 2004 to 2019. They also teamed up to produce the Academy Awards in 2017 and 2018 — both shows were hosted by Jimmy Kimmel.  
  
Since taking the reins at MGM from Jonathan Glickman, De Luca has made several splashy moves. He tapped former New Regency executive Pamela Abdy to serve as MGM Film Group president and made a play to snag Springbok and Martin Scorsese’s _Killers of the Flower Moon_ when Paramount got worried about the budget, though ultimately losing out to Blockbuster Entertainment to take it as a purely streaming film.  
  
Many things have panned out, however. MGM tapped Phil Lord and Chris Miller to direct Ryan Gosling in an astronaut movie, nabbed _Hamilton_ director Thomas Kail to oversee a remake of _Fiddler on the Roof_ (which Springbok is also attached to produce), and acquired North American rights to the George Miller-directed _Three Thousand Years of Longing_ with Idris Elba and Tilda Swinton, and Springbok may potentially join as producers of that film. Other upcoming MGM films, produced before De Luca joined and not involving Springbok, include the upcoming James Bond adventure _No Time to Die_ and _Respect_ starring Jennifer Hudson as Aretha Franklin.  
  
“MGM’s enduring legacy as a home for great storytellers is further burnished with the addition of Springbok, and especially the addition of Jennifer to our studio family,” said De Luca in a statement.  
  
In her own statement, Todd said, “I started my career producing films for Mike, have been so thrilled and happy to have him on the Springbok board for 15 years, and am thrilled to have the opportunity to work with him again. Kurt, Charlize, Mike, Pam and I share a deep love of film and I’m very excited to see what we can make together”.  
  
Todd has occasionally returned back to co-producing with her sister Suzanne (who is a key founder and producer for Ben Affleck and Matt Damon’s Pearl Street Films) and their Team Todd shingle, and some extramural films on her own. Recently, she did such an extramural project when she produced _The Way Back_ , a basketball drama that snagged some good reviews for Ben Affleck, but failed to ignite at the box office. She is also an executive producer of Showtime’s _City on a Hill_ starring Kevin Bacon and Aldis Hodge. Her deal was negotiated by Michael Gendler of Gendler & Kelly.

* * *

“ _Promised Neverland_ Live-Action Series in Development at Blockbuster,” by Joe Otterson, _Variety_ , June 10, 2020  
  
 _The Promised Neverland_ could be coming to Blockbuster Entertainment as a live-action series.  
  
 _Variety_ has learned that the streamer is developing a live-action English-language adaptation of the popular manga series written by Kaiu Shirai and illustrated by Posuka Demizu.  
  
Meghan Malloy is set to write the script. The series will be directed and executive produced by Rodney Rothman, with Masi Oka executive producing along with Roy Lee and Miri Yoon of Vertigo, and Jay Firestone, Channing Dungey and Laverne McKinnon of Springbok Productions. Fox 21 Television Studios and Springbok’s anime dubbing and adaptation division, Enima Studios, will produce. Malloy and Rothman both worked on the Oscar-winning animated film _Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse_.  
  
In _Promised Neverland_ , a group of the smartest kids at a seemingly idyllic orphanage uncover its dark truth when they break a rule to never leave the orphanage grounds. Once the truth is discovered, they begin to plan an escape to save all of the children. To date, the series has sold over 20 million copies. The English dub of the anime, made by Enima Studios, has naturally attracted a lot of attention on both network broadcast on Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim block, as well as streaming.  
  
Oka is an Emmy and Golden Globe nominated actor, best known for his role on the hit NBC series _Heroes_. He also produced the 2008 Enima Studios-produced live-action film adaptation of the anime series _Death Note_. His other current projects include a film adaptation of _Mega Man_ as well as _Attack on Titan_ , the latter of which, if it is made, is also expected to feature Enima Studios.  
  
He is repped by UTA, Luber Roklin and Ziffren Brittenham.  
  
Rothman is the credited co-writer and co-director of _Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse._ He previously served as a producer or writer on films such as _22 Jump Street_ , _Forgetting Sarah Marshall_ , and _Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping_.  
  
He is repped at UTA and Ziffren Brittenham.  
  
Malloy started her career as a development assistant at NBCUniversal and Mick Jagger’s Jagged Productions before working as Jon Favreau’s assistant for the films _Chef_ and _The Jungle Book_. In 2015 she started working as Rothman’s writer’s assistant.  
  
She is repped by Fourth Wall Management and Hansen Jacobson.

* * *

“New Regency Extends Credit Facility, Announces Term Loan,” by Brett Lang, _Variety_ , June 16, 2020  
  
New Regency has extended its credit facility for an additional five years, the entertainment company behind _The Revenant_ , _Gone Girl_ and _Bohemian Rhapsody_ announced Tuesday.  
  
The extension includes a revolving facility with a capacity of $700 million. It is led by J.P. Morgan and also backed by such financial institutions as Bank of America, Union Bank, and SunTrust. New Regency said it has also closed a five and a half year, $125 million term loan from The Carlyle Group.  
  
J.P. Morgan has a decades-long relationship with New Regency, and has arranged financings several times in the past. The financing announcement comes as much of Hollywood has ground to a halt. Coronavirus closed movie theaters and suspended film and television production until the end of May. The hope is that cinemas will come roaring back soon and that production will ramp up again.  
  
New Regency’s deal was originally set up at 20th Century Fox. It has moved to The Walt Disney Company following the company’s late 2018 acquisition of much of Rupert Murdoch’s media empire.  
  
Its upcoming slate includes Adrian Lyne’s _Deep Water_ starring Ben Affleck and Ana de Armas; _Everybody’s Talking About Jamie_ , a musical starring Richard E. Grant, Sharon Horgan, Sarah Lancashire and newcomer Max Harwood; director David O. Russell’s next project starring Christian Bale, Michael B. Jordan and Margot Robbie, as well as Robert Eggers’ _The Northman_ starring Alexander Skarsgård, Nicole Kidman and Willem Dafoe.

* * *

“MGM Roaring Back Under Michael De Luca With High-Profile Projects With Springbok, Ryan Gosling, Lady Gaga,” by Brent Lang and Justin Kroll, _Variety_ , June 24, 2020  
  
Paramount was worried.  
  
The budget for _Killers of the Flower Moon_ , a historical epic about a conspiracy to steal oil rights from Osage Native Americans, had ballooned to $200 million. The film was set to star Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro and was to be directed by Martin Scorsese and produced by Springbok Productions, but period pieces, even those with A-list talent, are dicey commercial propositions. The studio let it be known that it was interested in finding a co-financier. Along with heavy-hitters such as Blockbuster Entertainment and Universal, there was a surprising bidder in the mix — MGM. And though the studio ultimately lost out to Blockbuster on rights to the movie, MGM’s hot pursuit of the Scorsese picture was a statement-making moment.  
  
“In the industry, we certainly felt it conveyed it was a new day at MGM and we were going to stretch ourselves for certain filmmakers,” says Michael De Luca, chairman of MGM’s film group.  
  
Indeed, aggression has been the hallmark of MGM since January, when De Luca took the reins at a studio that many in the movie business felt was seriously lacking in ambition. In short order, the company has landed several buzzy projects, all of them teamups with Springbok, including _Fiddler on the Roof_ , which will be directed by Hamilton wunderkind Thomas Kail; Ridley Scott’s _Gucci_ , a salacious true-crime thriller with Lady Gaga; and _Project Hail Mary_ , an adaptation of Martian author Andy Weir’s novel of the same name that’s set to star Ryan Gosling and be directed by Phil Lord and Chris Miller. MGM also landed a first-look deal with Springbok as well. In a sign of its newfound willingness to pay for hot properties, MGM shelled out $3 million for the rights to _Project Hail Mary_.  
  
“We thought it was one of those films that would eventize itself based on the people involved,” De Luca says.  
  
Pamela Abdy, a former New Regency and Makeready executive who De Luca tapped in April to serve as motion picture group president, says that the company is committed to being filmmaker driven.  
  
“If you look at the projects we’ve been announcing and securing, the one thing in common with all of them is a director at the center who has real authorship,” says Abdy. “We will always go after filmmakers who have a strong point of view.”  
  
There are other commonalities to the films they’ve decided to back.  
  
“Themes are really important,” says De Luca. “When you look at _Hail Mary_ , the story is about everyone needing to work together on Earth even with an alien species. That feels relevant. _Fiddler_ is about religious persecution and family tradition and wanting a better life for your children. That feels universal.”  
  
What’s made these deals more surprising isn’t just that MGM is the studio that has emerged with the rights to some of the hottest projects in Hollywood. It’s that it is outbidding other studios in the midst of the slow recovery from coronavirus, a time when other companies have been reluctant to spend money.  
  
“We took an approach of trying to zig when others are zagging,” says De Luca. “In a period of uncertainty, some are choosing to be more conservative. That leaves a lane open to us to be aggressive and pursue material that we think is commercial. I liken it to storing acorns for the winter.”  
  
De Luca came to prominence in the 1990s as president of production at New Line, years that saw the studio make hits that included _Boogie Nights_ , _Seven_ , and the Austin Powers series. In the ensuing two decades, he’s had brief stints as an executive at DreamWorks and Sony, and then was an executive at Springbok for 15 years, from 2004 to 2019. He also did some extramural work producing films, including _Captain Phillips_ , _Moneyball_ and _The Social Network_. He says he was intrigued by the offer to run MGM because he believed that the studio could make the kind of movies that he once championed at New Line and Springbok.  
  
“Big studios carry certain burdens that we don’t,” says De Luca. “Our business plan doesn’t call for us to release tentpoles every quarter or spend all our time in franchise management.”  
  
Before De Luca assumed control, MGM had a mixed track record, especially in trying to recover from being a shell of its storied self and losing 2200 of its titles to Ted Turner, then to Warner Bros. The company had emerged from bankruptcy in 2010 and successfully got its balance sheet in order by leveraging its most durable franchises, _The Hobbit_ and James Bond. However, its other efforts to reenergize its library of classic titles achieved only intermittent success. It scored with _Creed_ , revitalizing the _Rocky_ franchise in the process, but stumbled badly with a costly remake of _Ben-Hur_. De Luca and Abdy are developing sequels to _Creed_ and another past hit, _Legally Blonde_ , but they seem more focused on restocking the cupboard with fresh material than they are with searching for titles to revisit.  
  
Of course, the rumor du jour is that De Luca has been tapped to prepare MGM for a sale to Apple, which is looking for a library to exploit and some filmmaking expertise to tap into by an expansion into production, both of which MGM and its newly minted chairman offer in abundance. De Luca plays down that suggestion.  
  
“Pam and I,” he says, “are going to make movies that add value to the studio and its library.”

* * *

“Industry Veteran Bob Osher Departs as Miramax Chief Operating Officer,” by Dave McNary, _Variety_ , June 24, 2020  
  
Bob Osher is leaving his Miramax posts as chief operating officer and general counsel after playing a significant role in securing and closing the $375 million deal for ViacomCBS and Paramount to buy 49% of the company.  
  
Osher had joined Miramax in 2018 after leading Sony’s digital division for seven years as president of Sony Pictures Digital Productions.  
  
“We are grateful for the integral role Bob has played in advancing the company’s commitment to great storytelling and innovative television and film projects,” said Miramax CEO Bill Block. “Bob helped lay the groundwork and played a key role in achieving the completion of our strategic partnership with ViacomCBS/Paramount, which will create unique new opportunities for collaborations and new value from our extensive library of award-winning film and television content.”  
  
The deal gave ViacomCBS/Paramount access to nearly 800 titles (though most of them still remain physically owned by other companies, but they do have access to do continuations/tie-ins to them) including _Pulp Fiction_ , _Shakespeare in Love_ and _Good Will Hunting_. beIN retains a 51% stake in the company, which it acquired in 2016.  
  
Miramax was founded in 1979 by Bob and Harvey Weinstein and sold to The Walt Disney Company in 1993 — by which time, it had transformed the independent film scene by producing such titles as _Sex, Lies, and Videotape_ and _The Crying Game_. Miramax’s assets were folded into Disney’s Touchstone Pictures brand in 2001, following a sputtering out after Harvey Weinstein’s exposure for sexual assault. The Miramax name was acquired from Disney in 2010 by Filmyard Holdings, consisting of Colony Capital, Tutor-Saliba Corporation, and Qatar Investment Authority, and additional monies from Springbok Productions. Disney retains the original Miramax’s films in their library, but did allow securitizations based on it and various “spiritually Miramax” titles released by Touchstone by Filmyard.  
  
The companies and Disney announced in April that Paramount Pictures has entered into an exclusive, long-term first-look agreement allowing Paramount Pictures to develop, produce, finance and distribute new film and television projects based on Miramax titles.  
  
“I couldn’t be more thankful for the time I’ve spent at Miramax,” Osher said. “It was an honor contributing to the efforts made behind our partnership with ViacomCBS/Paramount, integrating top-of-the-line resources and talent, which will ultimately define this new chapter of Miramax and the many successes to come.”

* * *

“ _Lady Chatterley’s Lover_ To Be Revived by _The Mustang_ director, Springbok and Disney,” by Justin Kroll, _Variety_ , June 25, 2020  
  
Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre is in active negotiations to direct _Lady Chatterley’s Lover_ for Fox 2000 Pictures, the midbudget and drama film arm of Disney-owned 20th Century Fox led by Elizabeth Gabler.  
  
 _Life of Pi_ scribe David Magee wrote the script.  
  
Springbok Productions, Oscar nominee Laurence Mark and Pete Czernin and Graham Broadbent of Blueprint Pictures are producing.  
  
Based on the classic D.H. Lawrence novel, the story revolves around the life of Lady Chatterley, a woman born to a life of wealth and privilege, who soon finds herself married to a man that she eventually falls out of love with. She engages in a torrid affair with a gamekeeper on their English estate, discovering more desire and intimacy than she thought possible.  
  
Lawrence’s risque novel has been adapted several times, including a 1981 version with _Emmanuelle_ star Sylvia Kristel and a less-explicit 2015 TV version with Richard Madden.  
  
Marisa Paiva and Nikki Cooper are the executive producers overseeing the project for 3000 Pictures, the side shingle started by Gabler, along with Springbok’s Paul Junger Witt, Tony Thomas, Paula Wagner and Sherry Lansing.  
  
De Clermont-Tonnerre’s drama _The Mustang_ premiered to acclaim at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival. She also helmed multiple episodes of the Emmy-winning _The Act_ and most recently worked with Springbok on the FX limited series _Mrs. America_.  
  
As for Gabler, Fox 2000, and 3000 Pictures, the side banner has been busy in recent months since signing their new deal with the studio acquiring sought-after titles that include _Where the Crawdads Sing_ and _Nothing to See Here_. They also recently set Johan Renck to direct and executive produce the limited series _Girl A_. Some of these projects will be added to the Fox 2000 roster, others won’t. And Fox 2000, for its part, continues to aggressively add projects to further pad out Disney’s slate, including negotiating for a project to be produced by Springbok and Hugh Jackman about the failed hijacking of FedEx flight 709 by Auburn Calloway on April 7, 1994.  
  
De Clermont-Tonnerre is repped by CAA, MGMT Entertainment and Rosalie Cimino at UBBA. Magee is repped by Lichter, Grossman, Nicholas, Adler, Feldman & Clark.

* * *

“Cate Blanchett Signs First-Look Production Deal With Springbok; Foreign Sales and Acquisitions,” by Dave McNary, _Variety_ , June 30, 2020  
  
Cate Blanchett has signed a first-look feature film production deal for her Dirty Films production company with Springbok Productions; more specifically to be aligned with its foreign sales and acquisitions group, headed by Brad Wyman, David Glasser, Brian Oliver and Bradley Fischer. Blanchett and Fischer previously worked together on _The House With a Clock in its Walls_ and _Truth_.  
  
Dirty Films, founded by Blanchett and Andrew Upton, recently executive produced the miniseries _Mrs. America_ for FX with Springbok. In the show, Blanchett starred as the late conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly. The company also co-created and executive produced the limited series _Stateless_ , set at an immigration detention center in the Australian desert, which will launch globally on Blockbuster Entertainment in July.  
  
Los Angeles-based producer Coco Francini, who executive produced _Mrs. America_ , has joined Dirty Films as a partner. Francini was an associate producer of Quentin Tarantino and Springbok’s _The Hateful Eight_ , and a co-producer on Zach Braff’s _Wish I Was Here_. She’s held executive posts at Activision Blizzard Studios and Stacey Sher’s Shiny Penny.  
  
Blanchett closed a deal recently to star in director Eli Roth’s movie adaptation of the video game _Borderlands_ at Lionsgate. She will also star in James Gray’s upcoming _Armageddon Time_ (also produced by Springbok) and Adam McKay’s _Don’t Look Up_. Blanchett won Academy Awards for her performances in _The Aviator_ and _Blue Jasmine_ , and was nominated for _Elizabeth_ , _Elizabeth: The Golden Age_ , _Notes on a Scandal_ and _I’m Not There_ , yet another Springbok project she starred in.  
  
“I’ve known Cate and Andrew for almost 10 years now and have had the great privilege of working with Cate on two films,” Fischer said. “While it is well-settled that she is among the greatest screen and stage actresses of our time, Cate also happens to have a fierce entrepreneurial vision and instinct for finding, developing, packaging and producing the kind of poignant and transportive film events that are at the heart of what all of us are building at Springbok, especially the foreign sales and acquisitions group that Brad, Brian and I are building.”  
  
Oliver received a Best Picture Academy Award nomination in 2011 for _Black Swan_ and joined Springbok’s foreign sales and acquisitions group, headed by Wyman since 2004, in 2017. The division helped secure notable foreign distribution sales for _1917_ and _Rocketman_ last year. CAA negotiated the deal on behalf of Dirty Films.

* * *

“Matt Reeves Inks Overall Deal at Warner Bros. Television Group,” by Joe Otterson, _Variety_ , July 6, 2020  
  
Director Matt Reeves is expanding his relationship with Warner Bros.  
  
Reeves and his 6th & Idaho production company have signed an overall deal with Warner Bros. Television Group. The multi-year deal will make WB home for all of 6th & Idaho’s future TV projects. The deal encompasses all platforms, including broadcast, cable, and WarnerMax/HBO Max, the group responsible for producing original content for Blockbuster Entertainment The projects will be produced in association with Warner Bros. Television, Warner Horizon Scripted Television, Warner Bros. Animation or Blue Ribbon Content, depending on the platform. Beyond the U.S., Warner Bros. International Television Distribution will distribute 6th & Idaho’s shows to the global marketplace.  
  
6th & Idaho is currently under a first-look film deal at Blockbuster Entertainment and was previously under a TV overall deal at 20th Century Fox Television.  
  
With the announcement, Daniel Pipski will now join the company as executive vice president and head of television. Along with Reeves, the company is also comprised of executive vice president Adam Kassan and vice president Rafi Crohn.  
  
Reeves is currently directing and producing a sequel to _The Batman_ for the DCEU, which is slated to hit theaters in October 2021. Reeves’ other feature credits include _War for the Planet of the Apes_ and _Dawn of the Planet of the Apes_ , the former of which he co-wrote and directed and the latter he directed. He also directed _Cloverfield_ and executive produced both _10 Cloverfield Lane_ and _The Cloverfield Paradox_.  
  
On the television side, 6th & Idaho is currently producing the Blockbuster Entertainment series _Away_ and _Tales From the Loop_ with Springbok Productions. The company is also behind the NBC drama pilot _Ordinary Joe_ starring James Wolk. In television, Reeves co-created and executive produced the hit series _Felicity_ for The WB alongside J.J. Abrams, and he directed the pilot and several additional episodes. He also executive produced Fox’s _The Passage_. He previously directed the pilots for NBC’s _Conviction_ as well as ABC’s _Miracles_ and _Gideon’s Crossing_ , in addition to episodes of NBC’s _Homicide: Life on the Street_ and ABC’s _Relativity_.  
  
Reeves is repped by CAA, 3 Arts Entertainment, and Jackoway Austen Tyerman.  
  
Pipski was previously the executive vice president and head of television for Jason Bateman’s Aggregate Films. There, he spearheaded development and co-executive produced the upcoming FX limited series _A Teacher_. He has developed or produced shows like El Rey Network’s _From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series_ , oversaw development and production of NBC’s Jason Katims comedy series _About a Boy_ , was executive in charge of the Ed Harris-Viggo Mortensen film _Appaloosa_ and Steven Soderbergh’s _The Informant!,_ starring Matt Damon, and developed the feature films _Gone Baby Gone_ and _Tron: Legacy._  
  
“Matt has been making some of my favorite movies and TV shows since I was addicted to Felicity, and it’s a thrill to get to be part of his great team alongside Rafi and Adam, building up his TV company with our partners at WBTV,” Pipski said.

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“Thomas Kail, Springbok Ink Overall Deal With 20th Century Fox TV,” by Elaine Low, _Variety_ , July 10, 2020  
  
20th Century Fox Television has signed _Hamilton_ and _Fosse/Verdon_ director-producer Thomas Kail and veteran producer, and Springbok Productions co-founder and CEO Jennifer Todd to a new overall deal, through which they have created a new TV company that will develop for all platforms under Kail’s Old 320 Sycamore banner.  
  
“Jennifer and I have been looking to find a project together for years, especially one that Springbok could be part of and help co-develop fare for,” said Kail. “Now, an even better thing happened: we have joined forces. This gives us the chance to find many projects to make together with ABC/Disney where Dana and her team have built an ideal landscape for us to work. And Springbok will continue to certainly be part of the process, coming on board these projects that we greenlight.”  
  
The multiyear deal kicked off in February, and covers TV projects only. Kail also directed and produced _Grease Live!_ for Fox, and produced the upcoming documentary _We Are Freestyle Love Supreme_ for Blockbuster Entertainment. His Broadway credits include _Hamilton, In The Heights, Freestyle Love Supreme, Lombardi_ , and _Magic/Bird_ ; off-Broadway he directed, among other productions, _Hamilton, In The Heights, Dry Powder, Tiny Beautiful Things, Kings_ and _The Wrong Man_.  
  
Besides her Springbok work, Todd is an executive producer of Showtime drama _City on a Hill_ , starring Kevin Bacon and Aldis Hodge, and a producer of Warner Bros. film _The Way Back_ starring Ben Affleck. She also exec produced the 89th and 90th Oscars telecast and sits on the board of governors for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences.  
  
“I am thrilled at the opportunity to partner with the brilliant Tommy Kail in a television company,” said Todd. “The chance to work with him and bring new stories to the ABC/Disney platforms is a dream come true.”  
  
Kail and Todd will produce films under their own separate banners; Springbok has a first look deal with MGM. Kail is repped by WME, and Todd is repped by attorney Michael Gendler.  
  
“I was worried that my quote about the great Tommy Kail might seem hyperbolic, but everything I’m about to say about him is undeniably true, starting with: he’s a genius,” said Disney TV Studios and ABC Entertainment chairman Dana Walden. “Throughout our time working together, we’ve watched Tommy mount a masterful live television event with _Grease: Live_ , for which he won an Emmy; then, he turned to the spectacular, multi-award winning drama, _Fosse/Verdon_. And, as Blockbuster subscribers experienced last weekend, Tommy’s film version of his and Lin Manuel Miranda’s breathtaking _Hamilton_ is a masterpiece that will be celebrated by generations to come. Tommy’s incredible degree of perfectionism, high level of specificity and brilliant creative vision runs throughout all of these great projects. Craig Hunegs, Carolyn Cassidy and I feel so lucky to be partnering with Tommy and the very talented Jen Todd and we look forward to seeing what they do together.”

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“Cate Blanchett’s Dirty Films and Springbok Set First-Look TV Deal at FX,” by Joe Otterson, _Variety_ , July 10, 2020  
  
Cate Blanchett and her Dirty Films production company have signed a first-look TV deal with FX Productions.  
  
Dirty Films is headed by Blanchett along with Andrew Upton and Coco Francini. News of the deal comes after Blanchett and Francini served as executive producers on the FX limited series _Mrs. America_ , in which Blanchett starred as Phyllis Schlafly and was also co-produced by Springbok Productions. The agreement covers all scripted and unscripted programming for FX, as well as potentially other divisions of the Disney-ABC Television Group. It also includes the provision to link arms with Springbok for projects as determined.  
  
“Cate Blanchett is a legendary talent and it was little surprise that her first role as an Executive Producer and star in an American television program – _Mrs. America_ – was such an overwhelming success,” said Gina Balian, president of original programming for FX Entertainment. “Cate, Andrew and Coco are equally talented at crafting and producing incredible stories and we welcome this opportunity to support their future television projects under this overall agreement. And of course, our continued work with Springbok being part of it is a tremendous plus.”  
  
 _Mrs. America_ received widespread critical acclaim upon its release, holding a 95% critical approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes. The series is considered a strong contender for the upcoming Emmy Awards as well.  
  
Dirty Films is an independent film and television production company, founded by Upton and Blanchett. In 2020, LA-based producer Francini joined as a partner. The company’s film credits include _The Truth, Carol, Little Fish_ , and _The Turning_ , which also was a co-production with Springbok. Dirty Films is also producing the upcoming Blockbuster Entertainment series _Stateless_.  
  
“We are excited to continue working with John (Landgraf), Eric (Schrier), Gina and the entire brilliant team at FX,” the Dirty Films partners said in a joint statement. “Through our collaboration on ‘Mrs. America,’ we’ve experienced firsthand their enthusiasm for robust conversations, and their unwavering support for bold and ambitious entertainment.”  
  
CAA negotiated the deal on behalf of Dirty Films.

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“Alan Parker, Director of _Bugsy Malone, Midnight Express_ , Dies at 76,” by Carmel Dagan, _Variety_ , July 31, 2020  
  
Alan Parker, the British director whose exceptionally wide-ranging oeuvre ranged from _Bugsy Malone_ to _Evita_ , from _Midnight Express_ to _The Road to Wellville_ , has died. He was 76.  
  
The British Film Institute confirmed Parker’s death on Friday, noting he died after a long illness.  
  
Parker was twice Oscar-nominated for best director, for 1978’s _Midnight Express_ and for 1988’s _Mississippi Burning_. While the director’s subject matter was eclectic, he did return frequently to the musical form: His films _Bugsy Malone_ , _Fame_ , _Pink Floyd The Wall_ , _The Commitments,_ _Evita_ and his film adaptation of the musical version of Mel Brooks’ _The Producers_ were all musicals or had strong musical elements in one form or another.  
  
Parker’s first feature film, 1976’s _Bugsy Malone_ , made a considerable splash for an audacious concept that worked only because everyone kept a straight face. The film was a Depression-era gangster musical cast entirely with children, the oldest perhaps 15. These included Jodie Foster and Scott Baio. Instead of bullets, the machine guns sprayed whipped cream. _The New York Times_ said: “That custard pies can maim and whipped cream should kill are only two of the ways in which some basic laws of the cinema are cheerfully junked in this wildly uneven but imaginative and stylish satire of 1920’s gangster movies. … which also includes a first-rate musical score and choreography, along with a cast of kids.” _Bugsy Malone_ was the first of five Parker films nominated for Cannes’ Palme d’Or.  
  
However intriguing _Bugsy Malone_ proved, it surprised many that the same director could helm a film as powerful as 1978’s _Midnight Express_ , the harrowing true-life story of a man, Billy Hayes (played by Brad Davis), sent to a nightmarish Turkish prison for smuggling hash. The film, which competed in Cannes, won the adapted screen Oscar for Oliver Stone and best original score for Giorgio Moroder, and it was nominated for best picture, director, supporting actor (John Hurt) and film editing. Roger Ebert said: “Parker succeeds in making the prison into a full, real, rounded world, a microcosm of human behavior.”  
  
The film had such an impact on the culture that even today a sentence in a Turkish prison is often invoked rhetorically as the worst possible punishment, whether accurate or not.  
  
Next, and very far indeed from _Midnight Express_ , was the 1980 film musical _Fame_ , the story of the students and teachers at New York’s High School of Performing Arts that won Oscars for original song and score and was nominated for four more. It also spawned the hit title song as well as a TV series, a stage musical and a 2009 film remake.  
  
Again changing tone radically, Parker next directed the 1982 Bo Goldman-scripted film _Shoot the Moon_ , about the disintegrating marriage of a couple played by Albert Finney and Diane Keaton. Finney’s successful writer and Keaton’s earth-mother live in a farmhouse in Marin County with their four small daughters. _Shoot the Moon_ also competed at the Cannes Film Festival.  
  
Also in 1982, Parker saw the release of _Pink Floyd The Wall_ , which was not a concert film. _Variety_ said the $12 million production is “an eye-popping dramatization of an audio storyline. Being a visual translation of a so-called ‘concept’ album, pic works extremely well in carrying over the somber tone of the LP.”  
  
 _Birdy_ (1984), starring Matthew Modine and Nicolas Cage, followed two friends who return from the Vietnam War. Birdy, played by Matthew Modine, has always been obsessed with birds and flight, but is mentally unstable after the war and in a seemingly birdlike state, while his friend Al (Cage), who returns from the war with grievous injuries, spends their time together in a veterans hospital attempting to coax Birdy from his regressive state. Flashbacks depict their relatively normal friendship prior to the war. _Birdy_ landed the Cannes Grand Jury Prize in 1985.  
  
 _Angel Heart_ (1987), a highly effective, atmospheric horror mystery film starring Mickey Rourke, Lisa Bonet and Robert De Niro, concerned a New York private detective (Rourke) hired by a mysterious De Niro, who plunges him into a case that leads Rourke’s detective to the eventual realization that the missing singer he is seeking is in fact himself — and that he has quite literally sold his soul to the devil.  
  
Parker followed _Angel Heart_ with _Mississippi Burning_ , loosely based on a true story, about two FBI agents, played by Gene Hackman and Willem Dafoe, sent during the 1960s to investigate the murder of civil rights workers to a Southern town where they must somehow pierce the conspiracy of silence. Hackman’s character (a former sheriff) is a pragmatist, while Dafoe’s the idealist. The film won an Oscar for cinematography and was nominated for best picture, director, actor (Hackman), supporting actress (Frances McDormand) as well as sound and film editing. However, the film attracted controversy for its divergence from the facts and became one of the prime example of the “white savior narrative” in film.  
  
The director made another issues picture in 1990’s _Come See the Paradise_ , which he also wrote. The film explored the injustice done to Japanese Americans at the beginning of World War II, when they were forcibly interned in camps. Starring Dennis Quaid and Tamyln Tomita, _Come See the Paradise_ again competed at Cannes.  
  
Very different indeed was his next film, _The Commitments_ , based on the novel by Irishman Roddy Doyle. Nominated for an Oscar for best editing, the film concerned a band whose members are drawn from the poorest quarters of North Dublin who decide they’ll play soul music. Roger Ebert called it “a loud, rollicking, comic extravaganza” in which the director “introduces a Dickensian gallery of characters, throws them all into the pot, keeps them talking, and makes them sing a lot.” The film’s appeal was simple, but its fans were very enthusiastic.  
  
 _The Road to Wellville_ (1994) was also a comedy — a health-care comedy set at the beginning of the 20th century, when mainstream medicine was still primitive and there were therefore all sorts of fellows plying their trade according to one untested theory or another. One such particularly odd duck was Dr. John Harvey Kellogg, who invented the corn flakes and treated people at a retreat in Battle Creek, Michigan. Down this rabbit hole go a couple played by Matthew Broderick and Bridget Fonda.  
  
Unlike Parker’s previous musical projects, Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s _Evita_ was an already existing property, with those who loved or hated it having formed their opinion years before Parker put his hands on the film adaptation. The casting of Madonna in the title role further polarized opinion, as did the casting of Antonio Banderas as her foil. The new song Lloyd Webber and Rice wrote for the movie won the Oscar for best song, and the film was Oscar nominated for film editing, sound, cinematography and art direction.  
  
Based on Frank McCourt’s bestselling book recounting his monumentally tragic childhood in Ireland, Parker’s 1999 adaptation of _Angela’s Ashes_ was Oscar-nominated for John Williams’ score, but critics felt it fell short as an adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize winner.  
  
Parker’s next film, _The Life of David Gale_ , starring Kevin Spacey (which was Spacey’s last project under a director other than himself, as his last released film prior to his exposure for sexual assault was the vanity project biopic _Beyond the Sea_ ), was a thriller that toyed with addressing the issue of capital punishment. Though it played at the Berlin Film Festival and also happened to have Nicolas Cage as co-producer, it did not garner the attention of his earlier films.  
  
Parker’s final film was as the director of a film version of the extremely popular musical stage transfer of Mel Brooks’ _The Producers_ , the zany musical comedy about a fading Broadway producer and a nebbishy accountant who scheme to raise far too much money to put on the worst play ever written (a show entitled _Springtime for Hitler_ ) and take the money and run because “the IRS isn’t interested in a show that flopped.” Parker shared the director’s credit with Mel Brooks himself, while original stage director Susan Stroman was relegated to overseeing the choreography (which she also did on Broadway), but Parker handled the heavy lifting as Brooks was constantly absent due to being at the bedside of his terminally ill wife, Oscar-winning actress Anne Bancroft. The film was also co-financed by Springbok Productions (in exchange for the regional rights to the play), and reunited the original Broadway duo of Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick, alongside the likes of Uma Thurman and Will Ferrell. Thanks to slick marketing by Springbok, the film was a financial success despite mixed reviews calling it not equal to the stage version or the original 1968 non-musical film the Broadway version was based on.  
  
Alan William Parker was born in Islington, London. He started his professional life in the advertising industry, thriving as a top copywriter at London’s Collet Dickinson Pearce (CDP) ad agency in the 1960s and early ’70s. Parker began his film career through his association with David Puttnam, a fellow ad man also aspiring to make movies who hired Parker to write the screenplay for the preteen romance _Melody_ (1971). For a time he directed TV commercials and short films for the BBC, winning a BAFTA TV Award in 1976 best single play for BBC TV movie _The Evacuees_ (1975).  
  
The same year Parker made his first movie, _Bugsy Malone_ , and never looked back.  
  
In 2013 Parker won a prestigious Academy Fellowship from BAFTA. Receiving numerous nominations over the years, Parker won BAFTAs for the screenplay to _Bugsy Malone_ , for direction of _Midnight Express_ and for best film and direction for _The Commitments_.  
  
At Poland’s Camerimage, the International Film Festival of the Art of Cinematography, he shared the cinematographer-director duo award with his lenser Michael Seresin in 2007, and the following year he won a special award for for a “director with unique visual sensitivity.” He was also a founding member of the Directors’ Guild of Great Britain.  
  
Parker was twice married, the first time to Annie Inglis from 1966 until their divorce in 1992.  
  
He is survived by second wife Lisa Moran, who had producing credits on several of Parker’s films; and four children by Inglis, including sons Alexander Parker and Jake Parker, an orchestrator and composer.

* * *

“Comcast Raising $4.5 Billion in Fresh Cash to Refinance Outstanding Debt,” by Jill Goldsmith, _Deadline Hollywood_ , August 11, 2020  
  
NBCUniversal's biggest owner Comcast said Tuesday it’s raising $4.5 billion in fresh cash by selling three tranches of notes and will use net proceeds from the offering entirely to refinance outstanding debt.  
  
Interest rates on the new bond sales, of $1.75 billion, $1.5 billion and $1.25 billion, are, respectively 1.5%, 2.45% and 2.65% (lower than rates on the outstanding debt). The nation’s healthiest companies, with strong credit ratings, have switched from fear selling early in the coronavirus pandemic when they were raising cash for a cushion to see them through the period of rebuilding after COVID-19 crisis. Now they’re taking advantage of low interest rates sustained by the Federal Reserve and reinforced by the Fed’s corporate bond buying program to refinance.  
  
The pandemic, though considered over, is still very much a factor in media and entertainment and having a major financial impact but consensus is generally that things hit a trough in the recently finished April to June quarter.  
  
AT&T chief financial officer John Stephens (AT&T owns a 10 percent stake in Time Warner) noted at a Q&A during a media conference earlier today that low rates mean that while AT&T’s debt is hefty, the cost of borrowing is cheap.  
  
Outstanding debt targeted includes Comcast’s 3.125% notes due July 15, 2022 ($1 billion principal amount outstanding), 2.85% notes due January 15, 2023 ($750 outstanding), NBCUniversal Media’s 2.875% notes due January 15, 2023 ($1 billion outstanding), 2.75% notes due March 1, 2023 ($1.1 billion outstanding) and some other debt with near term maturities.

* * *

“Sumner Redstone, Towering Media Mogul Who Helped Shape Modern Entertainment Industry, Dies at 97,” by Cynthia Littleton, _Variety_ , August 12, 2020  
  
Sumner Redstone, a towering figure in media who built his father’s drive-in theater business into an empire that included Viacom, Paramount Pictures and CBS Corp., only to see his legacy tarnished in his final years by corporate battles and sordid allegations by former girlfriends, died Aug. 11 at his home in Los Angeles. He was 97.  
  
National Amusements, the Redstone family’s private holding company that controls what is now ViacomCBS, confirmed that Redstone died Tuesday afternoon. After years of public battles with family members, Redstone had been in close contact over the past three years with his daughter, ViacomCBS chairman Shari Redstone, and others in his extended family.  
  
“My father led an extraordinary life that not only shaped entertainment as we know it today, but created an incredible family legacy,” Shari Redstone told Variety in a statement. “Through it all, we shared a great love for one another and he was a wonderful father, grandfather and great-grandfather. I am so proud to be his daughter and I will miss him always.”  
  
National Amusements noted Sumner Redstone’s role in shaping the modern media landscape with his early career in the exhibition business, followed by his acquisitions of Viacom, Paramount Pictures and CBS Corp. He famously coined the phrase “content is king” to emphasize his interest in programming and production assets.  
  
“Sumner was a man of unrivaled passion and perseverance, who devoted his life to his belief in the power of content,” National Amusements said. “With his passing, the media industry he loved so dearly loses one of its great champions. Sumner, a loving father, grandfather and great-grandfather, will be greatly missed by his family who take comfort knowing that his legacy will live on for generations to come.”  
  
The question of Sumner Redstone’s legacy is much clearer than it would have been just a few years ago when Shari Redstone was embroiled in legal battles with some of her father’s longtime business associates over control of his business interests. Upon his death, Sumner Redstone’s assets will formally be taken over by the Redstone family trust that will manage his controlling stake in ViacomCBS. Shari Redstone and other family members are among the trustees.  
  
The Boston-bred mogul who ruled his businesses with an iron fist was forced to step down as chairman of CBS and Viacom in early February 2016 amid pressure from shareholders and activists questioning his mental capacity. Redstone famously vowed he would live forever, so he wouldn’t bother picking his successor. He served as ViacomCBS chairman emeritus and chairman-CEO of National Amusements until the end.  
  
“Sumner Redstone was a brilliant visionary, operator and dealmaker, who single-handedly transformed a family-owned drive-in theater company into a global media portfolio,” said ViacomCBS president-CEO Bob Bakish. “He was a force of nature and fierce competitor, who leaves behind a profound legacy in both business and philanthropy. ViacomCBS will remember Sumner for his unparalleled passion to win, his endless intellectual curiosity, and his complete dedication to the company. We extend our deepest sympathies to the Redstone family today.”  
  
In 2016, a drawn-out legal battle for control of Viacom pitted his daughter, Shari Redstone, against his one-time protege, Philippe Dauman, with former girlfriends Manuela Herzer and Sydney Holland in key supporting roles. In keeping with her father’s tenacious example, Shari Redstone prevailed in what at times became down-and-dirty brawls with her father’s former mistresses, Dauman and former CBS chief Leslie Moonves.  
  
As late as October 2015, Sumner Redstone was said to be demanding a daily diet of steak and sex, according to court documents filed by Herzer. He indulged those appetites despite mostly being bedridden, fed through a tube, surrounded by around-the-clock caretakers and unable to speak intelligibly because of a severe speech impediment. He was a shadow of the powerhouse who once out-dueled fellow-magnates Barry Diller and John Malone to take control of Paramount Pictures.  
  
Redstone was among the last of a breed, a strong-willed in the mold of William Randolph Hearst and William Paley, who may be remembered as much for the battles he fought as for the successes he achieved in the entertainment business. He amassed some of the best-known holdings in the industry, including CBS, Paramount Pictures, MTV, VH1, Nickelodeon, Comedy Central, BET and Showtime.  
  
With his six-foot frame, shock of orange hair, Boston brogue and billionaire’s bearing, Redstone in his heyday of the 1980s and ’90s cut quite a figure in Hollywood’s business and social circles. He was respected by fellow moguls such as Rupert Murdoch and Ted Turner for his willingness to bet big on mergers and acquisitions and to speak his mind. He was feared by many who passed through Viacom’s doors as a demanding boss who paid slavish attention to the company’s stock price. And he had an appetite for the high life, particularly as it related to female companions.  
  
Redstone was a prominent exhibitor who had been a pioneer of the multiplex concept for movie theaters in the 1960s. He bought and sold at a profit stakes in 20th Century Fox, MGM/United Artists and Columbia Pictures before he set his sights on building his own studio empire.  
  
Redstone became a well-known figure in Hollywood with his 1987 acquisition of Viacom in a leveraged buyout valued at $3 billion. Six years later he waged a hard-fought war to land Paramount Pictures for $10 billion, and in 1999 he clinched a deal with Westinghouse to take over CBS. That deal put CBS and Viacom under the same corporate roof — until Redstone decided that Viacom’s stock was undervalued. He split up them back into separate entities in 2006.  
  
Redstone was a fighter by nature, and the tally of executives who battled with him, both from inside his companies and elsewhere, is extensive, including Wayne Huizenga, Frank Biondi, Mel Karmazin, Tom Freston, Jonathan Dolgen, Diller and finally Dauman, his longtime lawyer and business consiglieri. Redstone famously publicly dropped Tom Cruise from a lucrative deal at Paramount in 2006 because he felt the actor’s unusual behavior had hurt the ticket sales for _Mission: Impossible III_.  
  
Redstone often had stormy relations with his family, including his brother and his children, Shari and Brent. He successfully bought out his son’s share of the family business but failed to get his daughter to do the same despite a $1 billion offer. His marriage to Phyllis Raphael ended in 1999 after 52 years. In 2003, he wed former schoolteacher Paula Fortunato, but the union was over by 2008.  
  
Redstone’s final years were marked by tabloid eruptions about various mistresses and family members, who fell in and out of favor at Redstone’s expansive home in the gated Beverly Park enclave in the hills above Los Angeles. Long-time companion Herzer and some-time girlfriend Holland reportedly received $150 million in cash and assets over a five-year period. Redstone spurned both in 2015 and his lawyers vowed the following year to go to court to attempt to recover the gifts.  
  
Herzer’s lawsuit, filed in November 2015 became the first in a series of nasty legal challenges that defined Redstone’s final days. The Argentina-born socialite lost the case in May 2016 when a Los Angeles judge turned aside her request to be reinstalled as the ultimate overseer of Redstone’s health care. Herzer and Redstone’s attorneys fought it out for another 18 months before Herzer settled in January 2019 by paying Redstone $3.25 million for gifts the mogul had given her over the years.  
  
Importantly, the Herzer case also cemented the reemergence of daughter Shari Redstone in her father’s life. After the court decision, Shari became an even more regular presence. Her camp said the rapprochement was possible because Redstone’s greedy and controlling female companions had finally been removed from his life. The “other women,” in turn, said it was Shari Redstone who was exerting undue influence over her increasingly frail father — a charge leveled against Shari by Herzer, Dauman and Moonves.  
  
The image of the twilight Sumner Redstone — glassy-eyed and unable to express his abundant opinions — marked a sad departure from his younger self. By the mid-1980s, he saw the burgeoning value of cable television and went after Viacom. He invested freely in executive talent and stars — so long as they delivered. And he never ceased to be a cheerleader for the movie business where he got his start.  
  
The depth of Redstone’s ambition and drive may be explained by an earlier incident in which he cheated death. In 1979, he was caught in a hotel fire in Boston and was burned on more than 45% of his body as he hung from a window ledge. He wasn’t expected to live. But after 60 hours of intense surgeries, Redstone recovered. “I can say with certainty that my will to win, my tenacity, had a lot to do with my recovery,” he wrote in his 2001 memoir _A Passion to Win_.  
  
Trained as a lawyer, Redstone was fervently litigious throughout his career, especially on antitrust issues, dating back to a landmark lawsuit in 1958 in which his National Amusements theater company accused the major studios of conspiring to avoid offering movies fairly to all exhibitors. In 1981, the company sued Disney’s distribution arm, then named Buena Vista, over the practice of blind bidding, in this case, for the movie _The Black Hole_ ; the studio had required huge sums from theaters upfront, while exhibitors did not know what others were offering. Disney eventually settled, and the practice of blind bidding went away. In 1989, Redstone sued Time Inc. for not affording carriage to Viacom’s Showtime on its cable systems, which carried Time’s own HBO channel. Redstone eventually prevailed: Showtime was given distribution and Viacom received cash and other benefits.  
  
In the digital era, he personally directed Viacom’s strategy to wage copyright infringement war against Google’s YouTube when he realized how widely and quickly clips and pirated programs from Viacom channels were popping up on the Internet giant’s archive. Viacom’s years-long fight helped spur YouTube to make concessions to copyright owners by taking down videos when informed of infringement violations.  
  
For all his years in Hollywood, Redstone never lost his Boston Brahmin accent or his New England toughness. Long after age would dictate that his hair turn gray, Redstone maintained a deep-orange hue atop his head.  
  
Born Sumner Rothstein (the family name was changed when he was 17), he was the son of an immigrant aspiring entrepreneur father who eventually came to own local nightclubs, including the Boston branch of the famous Latin Quarter. His father bought his first drive-in on Long Island in 1934.  
  
Redstone was accepted into the elite Boston Latin School, where he graduated first in his class. He entered Harvard College but left to enlist in the armed forces, where he served in an intelligence unit decoding Japanese messages during World War II. He returned to civilian life and obtained his law degree from Harvard. Redstone managed to shake himself loose of the family’s theater business and was a law secretary for the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington and then a special assistant to the U.S. attorney general. He then became a partner in the law firm of Ford, Bergson, Adams, Borkland and Redstone before returning to the family business.  
  
But by 1954, Redstone returned to the family fold of what was then New England Drive In Theaters. He tackled the business with characteristic ambition, implementing an expansion plan by buying underlying property to the theaters he had acquired or built. In 1967, he joined the Massachusetts-based exhibitor National Amusements as president. He reorganized the company that grew in the following decade to become one of the 10 largest theater owners in the U.S., with more than 600 locations. The privately held National Amusements remained the holding company for Redstone’s controlling stakes in CBS and Viacom, among other investments.  
  
Concerned that exhibition was not growing fast enough, Redstone began investing in media in the early 1980s, scoring profits from his minority stakes in Fox, Columbia MGM/UA and Orion Pictures. He soon became a billionaire and one of Forbes’ richest men in the U.S.  
  
But that was not enough.  
  
In 1987, he began his bold takeover of Viacom, which owned the MTV Networks, Nickelodeon, Showtime as well as cable systems, TV and radio stations; the move was seen as an almost foolhardy risk for the New England theater owner. But Redstone prevailed after a protracted six-month battle. He borrowed most of the money for the leveraged buyout. He would later take the company and its debt public, also considered a highly risky move.  
  
Redstone eventually moved to New York to work with Viacom chief Frank Biondi. He turned over the family’s theater business to his son-in-law, Ira Korff. After seemingly attempting to buy all of Orion Pictures, he got involved in a battle with Metromedia giant John Kluge. He lost this one but made a handsome profit from his sale of his stock to Kluge. He then claimed he was not interested in Orion, consuming himself with running his new media empire.  
  
But Redstone had long coveted a Hollywood studio and, in 1993, the opportunity arose for him to act on that desire. His $7.5 billion offer to buy Paramount led to a battle with former Fox and Paramount CEO Barry Diller and his ally, cable mogul John Malone. When it seemed that Redstone had lost to Diller, who had run up his bid to about $9.5 billion, Redstone bounced back with a $10 billion bid.  
  
Diller folded, and Redstone had Paramount.  
  
The Paramount bid had driven down the price of Viacom stock from the mid-$60s to the mid-$30s, jeopardizing a $1 billion bid for Blockbuster Entertainment. Redstone wanted to make movies at Par, show them on his cable channels and rent them out at Blockbuster. He also managed to buy Blockbuster. But a decade later, in 2004, Viacom spun off the business and took a $1.3 billion writedown on the value of the video chain, despite the fact that Blockbuster was in the midst of its massive renaissance as a streaming video service and provider of original content, one that maximized its valuation and led to the eventual spinning out of the streaming service.  
  
The most transformative deal of Redstone’s career, though, was his acquisition in 2000 of CBS from its parent Westinghouse. It was at the height of the era of the large media conglomerate. That same year, AOL purchased Time Warner to form the largest media company in the world by revenues. But the CBS network, its local TV and radio stations never made for a good fit with Viacom’s high-flying cable properties, in the eyes of Wall Street. At the same time, Redstone’s relationship with CBS topper Mel Karmazin, who became Viacom president, continued to deteriorate until Karmazin resigned in June 2004. Leslie Moonves, the executive who spearheaded the revival of the Eye network in the previous decade, was handed the reins following Karmazin’s departure.  
  
In 2005, Redstone made the decision to split apart his media company and to serve as chairman of the two separate entities, both controlled by National Amusements. Redstone anticipated the de-consolidation trend in media that would later be followed by Time Warner and Cablevision Systems, among others. His hope was that the stock price of both CBS and Viacom would benefit by allowing investors to more tightly focus on broadcast or cable assets.  
  
After the split, Moonves remained CEO of CBS while former MTV Networks chief Tom Freston became CEO of Viacom. A year later, Redstone shocked the industry when he abruptly fired Freston for what many believed was Redstone’s frustration over Viacom’s failure to win social networking site MySpace. In retrospect, it’s clear that Viacom dodged a bullet as News Corporation bought MySpace for $580 million in 2005 and sold it in 2011 for $35 million. In Freston’s place, Redstone placed his longtime lawyer, Dauman.  
  
The issue of succession was not one Redstone ever addressed in public. The frequency of the question as his years advanced spurred his famous vow to “live forever.” The picture was further muddied when he had a falling out with his daughter, Shari, who served as president of National Amusements and whom many figured would take over for her father. But Redstone’s grip on CBS and Viacom — he controlled nearly 80% of the voting shares in each — allowed him to wave off pressure from investors to detail a specific plan following his death.  
  
As part of his divorce settlement with his first wife, Phyllis, it was disclosed that all of Redstone’s stock would be left to his grandchildren. The Redstone Family Trust will inherit National Amusements assets and be run on behalf of the grandchildren by a group of seven trustees.  
  
Amid the legal battles Herzer, Holland and Dauman, Shari Redstone began to exert more influence as Viacom’s fortunes declined. She brought new board members into Viacom and was instrumental in selecting Bakish, who was formerly Viacom International Media Networks, as president and CEO in December 2016. Shari Redstone told friends and colleagues how important Viacom was to her father and how much she wanted to see it restored to health.  
  
After years of on-again, off-again negotiations, Shari Redstone succeeded in bringing Viacom and CBS Corp. back together in a merger completed in December 2019, led by Bakish. In September 2018, Moonves was ousted as chairman-CEO of CBS Corporation after also battling Shari Redstone for control of CBS and after allegations of past sexual misconduct surfaced, having been able to somehow keep it bottled up despite an increased scrutiny of entertainment industry figures after two decades’ worth of exposure.  
  
A longtime philanthropist, Redstone gave generously throughout his career to causes ranging from burn recovery research to the Cambodian Children’s Fund to (more controversially) Autism Speaks. He consistently made _Forbes_ ’ magazine list of the wealthiest people in the world. In 2012, Paramount renamed its Administration Building the Sumner Redstone Building in a dedication ceremony.  
  
In closing out his memoir, Redstone wrote: “Chronological age has little to do with intellectual capacity, the ability to work, the ability to lead. In fact, I often surprise my younger colleagues by being the first to accept and, indeed, suggest new ideas and new agendas when the assumption is I will hold on to the old ones like a bulldog …. I still want to be No. 1.”

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“Springbok Turns to John Hughes for Inspiration,” by Dave McNary, _Variety_ , August 17, 2020  
  
Springbok Productions is beginning a real renaissance of the works of the late influential writer and director John Hughes in a big way, with two new projects aimed at paying homage to him.  
  
First off, Will Smith and Kevin Hart will star in and produce a remake of the 1987 road comedy _Planes, Trains & Automobiles_ for Paramount Pictures and Springbok.  
  
The original _Planes, Trains & Automobiles_ was directed by Hughes, and starred Steve Martin and the late John Candy as a pair of mismatched businessmen trying to get home to Chicago for Thanksgiving in the face of a variety of travel disasters.  
  
The remake will be a modern update of the original, with Smith and Hart playing characters who are forced to team up to tackle travel obstacles to get home to their loved ones.  
  
Hart’s HartBeat Productions and Smith’s Westbrook Studios are developing the remake alongside Springbok. Aeysha Carr ( _Brooklyn Nine-Nine_ ) is set to pen the screenplay, marking her feature writing debut. Hart and Smith will produce the film alongside Springbok founders Kurt Cobain, Charlize Theron and Jennifer Todd; and alongside Westbrook Studios co-president and head of motion pictures Jon Mone and HartBeat’s president of film and television Bryan Smiley.  
  
Smith was most recently seen in _Bad Boys for Life_. He’s in production on _King Richard_ , in which he stars as the father of tennis stars Venus and Serena Williams. Hart was last seen in _Jumanji: The Next Level_ and has completed production on the drama _Fatherhood_ , which Sony will release in April 2021.  
  
Carr most recently executive produced the upcoming Blockbuster Entertainment series _Woke_ , starring Lamorne Morris and Sasheer Zamata, and set to air in September. Her recent writing credits include episodes for a number of sitcoms, including the series _Brooklyn Nine-Nine_ , for which she also served as a supervising producer.  
  
The other Hughes-related project Springbok is working on is infinitely more ambitious. Entitled _Shermer_ , it will be a massive anthology series and crossover of Hughes’ various films interacting together and also seeing more of what became of their lives after the movies’ end, done in the vein of the similar Blockbuster Entertainment anthology series _Castle Rock_ , involving the stories of Stephen King.  
  
Set in the fictional Chicago suburb of Shermer, Illinois, where Hughes’ films largely took place, the series will see the crossing over and further adventures of Ferris Bueller, John Bender, Andie Walsh, Del Griffith, Kevin McCallister, and other such beloved characters. The series will be overseen and created by Stephen Chbosky, who wrote and directed the film _The Perks of Being a Wallflower_ , which owed a significant influence from Hughes and was at one point considered as Hughes’ comeback vehicle before negotiations broke down, and who worked with Springbok penning the script for their and Disney’s live action remake of _Beauty and the Beast_.  
  
Joining as co-producers with Springbok are Dakota Johnson and Ro Donnelly’s TeaTime Pictures, John Malkovich’s Mr. Mudd, and Judd Apatow. The series will include the various characters being recast by younger actors, as well as surviving Hughes veterans like Molly Ringwald, Judd Nelson, Ally Sheedy, Emilio Estevez, Anthony Michael Hall, Matthew Broderick, Steve Martin and Daniel Stern playing new characters that interact with the familiar ones. The series also plans to attract a wide variety of celebrity guest stars, many of whom are Hughes fans, to appear in various episodes. Theron herself is confirmed to appear in an episode. Blockbuster Entertainment will release the series, with a release date yet to be given, though it has confirmed that the series will be filmed on location in the Chicagoland area.

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"AT&T Looks To Shed Stake In DirecTV," by Jill Goldsmith, _Deadline Hollywood_ , August 28, 2020 **  
  
**AT &T is looking to sell a chunk of satellite broadcaster DirecTV to private equity investors, according to the _Wall Street Journal_ , as the the heavily indebted wireless giant pivots to media. Suitors include Apollo Global Management, which is said to have expressed interest last year, and Platinum Equity. AT&T declined to comment.  
  
AT&T acquired DirecTV in 2015 for $49 billion. As pay TV services shed subscribers in recent years, a deal today could value the division at $20 billion – or well less than half of its original price – WSJ said. The telco has also considered merging the business with smaller rival Dish Network, which could trigger antitrust concerns.  
  
AT&T has a whopping $105 billion in debt, the latest figure reached after having bought a ten percent stake of Time Warner. It’s explored selling various assets. Many deals across sectors were put on hold by the pandemic. The wireless and broadband company has been pivoting to media, creating effectively an alliance with HBO, Warner Bros. and a family of cable networks in the Time Warner equity purchase deal, paving the way for it to cross-collateralize with Blockbuster Entertainment more effectively in selling it in their cable subscription deals.

* * *

"Hollywood Mourns Chadwick Boseman: 'This Is a Crushing Blow," by Mark Malkin and Alex Stedman, _Variety_ , August 28, 2020 **  
  
**As the news hit social media that Chadwick Boseman died at age 43 after a four-year battle with colon cancer, Hollywood is remembering the actor who became a household name when he starred in the title role of the Marvel superhero movie _Black Panther_.  
  
Former President Barack Obama paid tribute to Boseman online noting that he saw noticed something special in the actor early in his career when he visited the White House after playing Jackie Robinson in _42_ : "Chadwick came to the White House to work with kids when he was playing Jackie Robinson. You could tell right away that he was blessed. To be young, gifted, and Black; to use that power to give them heroes to look up to; to do it all while in pain – what a use of his years."  
  
Jordan Peele tweeted, “This is a crushing blow.” Fellow director Nia DaCosta wrote, “I’ll miss waiting to see what he does next. Rest in power.”  
  
Boseman’s family announced on his Twitter on Friday night that he died with his wife and family by his side. Calling Boseman “a true fighter,” the family said he was diagnosed with stage III colon cancer in 2016 and “battled with it these last 4 years as it progressed to stage IV.”  
  
“Chadwick’s passing is absolutely devastating,” said Kevin Feige, president of Marvel Studios and chief creative officer of Marvel, in a statement. “He was our T’Challa, our Black Panther, and our dear friend. Each time he stepped on set, he radiated charisma and joy, and each time he appeared on screen, he created something truly indelible. He embodied a lot of amazing people in his work, and nobody was better at bringing great men to life. He was as smart and kind and powerful and strong as any person he portrayed. Now he takes his place alongside them as an icon for the ages. The Marvel Studios family deeply mourns his loss, and we are grieving tonight with his family.”  
  
Anthony and Joe Russo, who directed Boseman’s debut in _Captain America: Civil War_ and his appearances in _Avengers: Infinity War_ and _Avengers: Endgame_ , remembered the _Black Panther_ star.  
  
“Chadwick was such an elegant man with great integrity and tremendous talent. He inspired an entire generation to stand up and be king. Honor him by emulating him — show kindness and love to others. Share your talents in ways that impact. Always strive to be a light in the darkness,” they said.  
  
Several other Marvel stars expressed their condolences on Twitter. Boseman’s _Black Panther_ co-star Letitia Wright, who plays T’Challa’s sister Shuri in the blockbuster, took to the platform on Sunday to say she was “hurting.” Danai Gurira, who plays Okoye, the leader of Wakanda’s Dora Milaje guards, wrote a lengthy statement on Twitter. “How do you honor a king? Reeling from the loss of my colleague, my friend, my brother. Nothing feels adequate. I always marveled at how special Chadwick was. Such a pure hearted, profoundly generous, regal, fun guy. My entire job as Okoye was to respect and protect a king. Honor his leadership. Chadwick made that job profoundly easy.  
  
“He was the epitome of kindness, elegance, diligence and grace. On many an occasion I would think how thankful I was that he was the leading man I was working closely with. A true class act. And so perfectly equipped to take on the responsibility of leading the franchise that changed everything for Black representation. He made everyone feel loved, heard and seen. He played great, iconic roles because he possessed inside of himself that connection to greatness to be able to so richly bring them to life. He had a heroic spirit, and marched to the beat of his own drum; hence his excellence as an artist and the incredible courage and determination as he faced life’s challenges; while still guiding us all.  
  
“He was zen and funny (with the very best laugh), attentive and truly, truly good. I can’t even wrap my mind around this loss. A loss resonating in my own heart as well as around the globe. The children he inspired, my heart aches for them, to lose their hero just as they finally found him. I am so thankful to have taken the _Black Panther_ journey with him. To have known him, spent time in his light and leadership and to call him forever a friend,” she wrote, ending the statement with “Lala Ngoxolo Kumkani,” which means “Rest in peace, O king” in Xhosa.  
  
Meanwhile, Don Cheadle wrote, “I will miss you, birthday brother. you were always light and love to me. my god…” _Iron Man_ star Robert Downey, Jr., shared a video of him and Boseman on Instagram, writing, “Mr. Boseman leveled the playing field while fighting for his life…That’s heroism…I’ll remember the good times, the laughter, and the way he changed the game… #chadwickforever” Tom Holland, who debuted as Spider-Man alongside Boseman’s first appearance in _Captain America: Civil War_ , wrote a tribute on Instagram. “Chadwick, you were even more of a hero off screen than on. A role model not only to me on set, but to millions of others around the world. You brought joy and happiness to so many and I’m proud to have been able to call you a friend,” he wrote.  
  
“I have absolutely no words,” wrote Simu Liu, star of the upcoming _Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings_. “Rest in power my brother.” Brie Larson said on Twitter, “I’m honored to have the memories I have. The conversations, the laughter. My heart is with with you and your family. You will be missed and never forgotten.” “Chadwick was special,” wrote Chris Evans. “A true original. He was a deeply committed and constantly curious artist. He had so much amazing work still left to create.”  
  
Angela Bassett, who played Boseman’s mother in _Black Panther_ , shared a gallery of photos of the two, both in character and out, on Instagram. “I’m gonna have to tell Cy, Bowie and Zen that T’Challa has passed,” _Guardians of the Galaxy_ star Zoe Saldana said, referring to her children. “What other king can I tell them about now?” Another _Guardians_ star, Chris Pratt, wrote, “My prayers go out to Chadwick’s family and loved ones. The world will miss his tremendous talent.”  
  
“We are all heartbroken by the tragic loss of #chadwickboseman — an extraordinary talent, and one of the most gentle and giving souls I have ever met,” wrote Walt Disney Company co-CEO Bob Iger. “He brought enormous strength, dignity and depth to his groundbreaking role of Black Panther; shattering myths and stereotypes.”  
  
“Hard to hear about this. Rest in love, brother,” Dwayne Johnson wrote. “Thank you for shining your light and sharing your talent with the world. My love and strength to your family.” “In power,” director Barry Jenkins wrote. “Eternally in power.”  
  
Political figures have also commented on Boseman's death. Former vice president Joe Biden wrote, “The true power of Chadwick Boseman was bigger than anything we saw on screen. From the Black Panther to Jackie Robinson, he inspired generations and showed them they can be anything they want — even super heroes.” President Hillary Clinton said, "Chadwick Boseman was truly one of the greatest actors of his generation, and a true hero to all of us. The world is a sadder place without the man who taught us so much about the power inside ourselves."  
  
In a statement, Denzel Washington, a producer on the upcoming Blockbuster Entertainment film _Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom_ , which will be Boseman’s final film (and whose press preview premiere was delayed), wrote, “He was a gentle soul and a brilliant artist, who will stay with us for eternity through his iconic performances over his short yet illustrious career. God bless Chadwick Boseman.”  
  
“Chadwick…..no words to express my devastation of losing you,” Viola Davis, who stars with Boseman in _Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom_ , tweeted. “Your talent, your spirit, your heart, your authenticity……..It was an honor working beside you, getting to know you.  
  
Springbok Productions, who co-produced _Ma Rainey's Black Bottom_ and also set to co-produce an upcoming limited series about the Little Rock Nine with Boseman's X-Ception Content shingle and Seth MacFarlane, joined the chorus of mourners. "Just found out that Chadwick Boseman is dead," Kurt Cobain wrote. "This is a tragic day for all of us, and our time with him was all too brief. But in that short amount of time, what amazing he work he did! There will never be another like him." "Our hearts go out to his family and friends," Charlize Theron stated. "Chadwick was truly a beautiful soul, and he rewrote what it means to be an actor these days. From being Jackie Robinson to James Brown (in the film _Get On Up_ ), from T'Challa to _Da 5 Bloods_ , an incredible legacy in a short amount of time. We are all mourning him together." "Springbok will work to honor the memory of Chadwick Boseman and make the most of our brief time together," Jennifer Todd wrote. "We fully intend to promote the most out of _Ma Rainey's Black Bottom_ when it is released, and we will keep his name, and that of X-Ception Content, on the Little Rock Nine series we were set to do with him and Seth MacFarlane. We will finish that work, for him, and make sure it is not in vain, because we know he'd want that show to be finished."  
  
Josh Gad, who co-starred with Boseman in 2017’s _Marshall_ , shared a screengrab of one of the last texts he received from his costar, in which Boseman marveled at the beauty of a rainy day in Los Angeles. “He knew how precious every moment was,” wrote Gad. “Tonight the Heavens received one of its most powerful angels.”  
  
Harrison Ford, who co-starred with Boseman in _42_ , said in a statement, “Chadwick Boseman was as compelling, powerful and truthful as the characters he chose to play. His intelligence, personal dignity and deep commitment inspired his colleagues and elevated the stories he told. He is as much a hero as any he played. He is loved and will be deeply missed.”  
  
Thomas Tull, who produced _42_ , wrote, “Chadwick was a force of nature full of abundant talent and strong spirit. Tonight all baseball teams are wearing 42 to honor Jackie Robinson, and today marks the anniversary of Dr. King’s iconic I Have a Dream speech. Chad was special, he played Jackie Robinson with respect and reverence for the legacy of a man who changed the world. Chad was kind and genuine, I will miss him dearly and I will never forget him. My heart goes out to his wife and family.”  
  
The Jackie Robinson Foundation also honored the star, calling him a “dear friend.”  
  
“Preparing for his starring role in _42_ , he studied extensively and spent considerable time with Rachel Robinson. A consummate professional, he absorbed every story, every memory and every photo and film excerpt he could consume to help translate the soul of an American hero. And now, Chadwick will be etched in history as a hero in his own right, especially having shown millions of Black and Brown children the power of a superhero who looks like them,” the foundation said in a statement. “Chadwick — may you rest in peace eternally. Take your place among the greats.”  
  
Charles D. King, founder and CEO of the production company Macro, thanked Boseman for the "vision of royalty" he gave to his two sons.  
  
“Chadwick. Still processing the tremendous void left with your passing. The power of your performances and the images you seared on screen will resonate for generations. Thank you for the vision of royalty you gave to my two young kings, and to the entire world. Each time we met, I was struck by your humility, your character, your kindness and your commitment to your craft and uplifting our community. Rest in peace and power King. You are a gift to be forever treasured,” he said. ****

* * *

" _The Thief and the Cobbler_ To Be Finished By Springbok," by Dave McNary, _Variety_ , September 1, 2020

Richard Williams' legendary unfinished animated opus, _The Thief and the Cobbler_ , will get a new lease on life and finally be finished in accordance to the late director's original vision by Denver and Delilah Animation, the animated projects division of Springbok Productions. Sony's Screen Gems imprint will distribute the finished product in theaters, PVOD, streaming and home video.

Williams was a maverick in the field of animation, best known for his insistence on perfection, attention to detail, and also of hating being constricted by the storyboarding process. He made a name for himself creating animated shorts in Britain like _The Little Island,_ _Love Me-Love Me-Love Me_ and _The Dermis Probe_ , making animated commercials, and for making title sequences for _What's New Pussycat?, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, The Return of the Pink Panther, The Pink Panther Strikes Again,_ the 1967 _Casino Royale_ , and the 1971 _A Christmas Carol_. But Williams wanted to branch out to make a full-length feature, envisioning a film that would be known as the best animated film of all time. It was supposed to be based on the tales of Mulla Nasrudin, and be an anthology of sorts, and worked to get a business deal and financing together to begin working. However, Williams fell out with his partners, in large part because of discovering they were embezzling the funds, and lost the rights to most of the characters, save for a nameless thief. As a result, Williams reimagined the story to focus on this thief, and a simple cobbler named Tack who would become an unlikely hero, fighting to foil a scheming grand vizier, Zigzag, voiced by Vincent Price. The film would be fashioned like a silent film, except with a lot of background sound and minimal dialogue, and Tack and the Thief being completely mute. It went through several titles, including _Tin Tack, The Thief That Never Gave Up_ and _Once..._ , before settling on _The Thief and the Cobbler_. Williams would establish it by "not following the Disney route" and calling it "the first animated film with a real plot that locks together like a detective story at the end."

Williams had to hustle to find side projects to attract new animators and new funding, such as continuing his title sequences and commercial work, and a full-length film called _Raggedy Ann & Andy: A Musical Adventure_. However, the process was slow, as he kept on envisioning bigger ambitions, and revised the script and designs. A Saudi prince funded a ten-minute test sequence in 1978, and it came forward a year later, but because of missing two deadlines and budget overruns, the prince backed out of the production. Former Star Wars producer Gary Kurtz, impressed after seeing the 20-minute sample reel Williams had put together, worked to help Williams secure new backers. In 1986, Jake Eberts and his Allied Filmmakers company, ponied up $10 million, and Majestic Films began promoting the film in attempt to land further sales in film markets. However, Steven Spielberg and Robert Zemeckis ended up giving the most help, as they gave Williams the job of directing the animation for _Who Framed Roger Rabbit?_ , and helped it obtain its massive success, as well as getting two Oscar wins for himself. Williams chose to strike while the iron was hot and return with a vengeance to his opus, though plans of having Disney and Spielberg co-produce and distribute the film died aborning.

Williams landed a negative pickup deal with Warner Bros. and some Japanese investors for financing and distribution, and production ramped up in 1989, complete with Williams deciding to bend his rule and begin storyboarding at last, because he needed to move beyond two and a half hours of pencil tests and 20 finished minutes. However, Williams' perfectionist methods only continued, complete with firing artists that weren't doing work up to his standards in a very arbitrary manner. While much more progress was done, Williams missed the deadline Warners had set, and the threat of Disney's _Aladdin_ taking the wind out of their sails made them worried. As part of Williams' contract, The Completion Bond Company had gotten in a clause to ensure Williams would deliver a finished film, or the completion guaranty firm would take the film and finish it themselves. When they sent producer Fred Calvert to assess the situation, and see that Williams was over budget and well behind schedule, they asked him to assemble a workprint so they could see what was done and what was still needed. Unsatisfied with the rough version, Warners and the Japanese investors terminated their deal, and CBC decided to exercise the guaranty clause and fire Williams from the project. They asked Calvert to take over and complete it as quickly and cheaply as possible. This was done by cutting the runtime, refashioning it with music and more dialogue to go along with the lines Vincent Price had recorded for the villain, Zigzag, between 1967 and 1973, and going in the opposite direction from Williams' vision, by adding four songs. The film was then outsourced to other animation studios to finish it off.

Calvert finished his job in 18 months, then released it as _The Princess and the Cobbler_ on September 23, 1993, but only in Australia and South Africa, to virtually no reception. Then Miramax Films, the company founded by the now-disgraced Harvey Weinstein and his brother Bob and then under the ownership of Disney, got the North American distribution rights, and Weinstein ordered yet more revisions, cutting it down to only 72 minutes, rewriting the dialogue and recasting the characters, complete with making Tack speak, and the Thief as well (though only as internal monologue), and having the likes of Jennifer Beals, Matthew Broderick and Jonathan Winters. This version was released as _Arabian Knight_ on August 25, 1995, to negative reviews and box office. The home video version was delayed and released under the original title in February 1997, but is since out of print.

Roy Edward Disney, nephew of Walt, made a deal with Williams to release the original version on DVD, but rights negotiations broke down. Williams' workprint was archived by the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, and fanmade edits, called _The Recobbled Edition_ , was made, combining the workprint and pencil tests and more polished animation together, to create a version more in line with Williams' vision, but it was still technically incomplete, and remains so, especially after Williams' death last year.

But now that is changing. Denver and Delilah Animation will finish the version, using the animation methods and styles in use at the time Williams labored hard on the project, to make his vision finally come to pass, which Sony will distribute. "At long last, Richard Williams' dream will come true," says Stan Kinsey, head of the division. "The closest comparison I can make is to how the music world felt when Brian Wilson finished _SMiLE_ at long last, and released it to the world, that had long wondered what that lost masterpiece was like, and it was all they'd hoped for, and more. Now, we get to help make this come to pass as well. Best of all, we can take our time, without a deadline, and we also have the patience to ensure that the team that does it is the best it can be, and it will proceed as smoothly as possible."

* * *

"Mel Gibson Signs With APA," by Mike Fleming, Jr., _Deadline Hollywood_ , September 15, 2020 **  
  
**Academy Award-winning actor, director, producer and screenwriter Mel Gibson has signed with APA.  
  
Gibson had been at CAA, but left after the exit of his primary agents Jack Whigham and Michael Cooper. They went to Range Media Partners. Gibson moved to APA to join president Jim Osborne, who started his career as one of iconic ICM agent Ed Limato’s protege assistants. Limato was Gibson’s agent forever. Gibson went with Limato to WME but parted company with the agency after Limato died, in the wake of controversial comments the actor/director made at a troubled period in his life. He spent several years regaining his footing when he was managed by former CAA honcho Rick Nicita. When Nicita retired, Gibson went to CAA.  
  
Gibson has been busy. He currently stars in three upcoming feature films: the Tim Kirkby-directed action/thriller _Last Looks_ opposite Morena Baccarin and Charlie Hunnam; the Eshom and Ian Nelms-directed comedy _Fatman_ , opposite Walter Goggins and Marianne Jean-Baptiste for Saban Films; and the Joe Carnahan-directed sci-fi action/thriller _Boss Level_ , opposite Annabelle Wallis and Fran Grillo. Other recent credits include the crime drama _Dragged Across Concrete_ opposite Vince Vaughn, and the comedy _Daddy’s Home 2_ , opposite Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg.  
  
As a filmmaker, Gibson is developing several projects. At Warner Bros., he cowrote and will direct the remake of _The Wild Bunch_ based on the original 1969 film directed by Sam Peckinpah, which will be produced by Springbok Productions and Gibson's own Icon Productions. _Deadline_ broke in 2019 that Michael Fassbender, Jamie Foxx and Peter Dinklage were the actors he had ready to take part, but that was before the pandemic scrambled everything. Gibson is coming off the 2016 historical drama _Hacksaw Ridge,_ a film that grossed over $180 million worldwide and got six Oscar nominations and won two. The noms included Best Picture and Best Director. Before that Gibson directed the 2006 Mayan thriller _Apocalypto_ , the 2004 blockbuster _The Passion of the Christ_ , and before that the 1995 historical drama, _Braveheart_ , which won the Best Picture Oscar and the Best Director prize for Gibson.  
  
Beyond that, Gibson has several projects percolating. He’ll reteam with Carnahan for _Leo From Toledo_ , playing a former hitman from the KC mob in witness protection whose memory is failing; _Lethal Weapon 5_ , a continuation of the blockbuster Warner Bros. franchise that has director Richard Donner returning, a script by Channing Gibson and Danny Glover and Rene Russo poised to return. There is also the sequel _The Passion of the Christ: Resurrection_ , which Icon is mounting. He’ll direct with _Braveheart_ scribe Randall Wallace and they have Jim Caviezel poised to return as Jesus, and Maia Morgenstern, Christo Jivkov, and Francesco De Vito attached.  
  
Gibson joins an APA, roster that includes Gary Oldman, Mary J. Blige, Curtis ’50 Cent’ Jackson, and Famke Janssen, along with numerous writers, creators, producers, showrunners, authors, comedians, production companies, intellectual properties, artisans and lifestyle brands. The agency is looking to grow, on the heels of Ron Burkle’s The Yucaipa Companies making a substantial non-equity investment in the diversified talent agency with offices in Los Angeles, New York, Nashville, Atlanta, Toronto and London.  
  
Gibson continues to be lawyered by Leigh Brecheen at Brecheen Feldman Breimer Silver & Thompson.

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"Brian Grazer and Ron Howard's Imagine Impact Closes Financing With Benchmark," by Dave McNary, _Variety_ , September 17, 2020 **  
  
**Imagine Impact, an offshoot of Ron Howard and Brian Grazer’s production company Imagine Entertainment, has closed its Series A financing round led by Silicon Valley venture capital firm Benchmark.  
  
Imagine Impact joins eBay, Hipcamp, Instawork, Nextdoor, OpenTable, Stitch Fix, Uber, Springbok Productions, Yelp, and Zillow, in Benchmark’s investment portfolio. Benchmark partner Bill Gurley spearheaded the deal and will join the board.  
  
“The old way of sourcing talent in the entertainment industry is based on who you know, which presents high barriers-to-entry for the fresh voices we need to hear from,” said Gurley. “Impact is knocking down these barriers through a marketplace model that reduces information asymmetry and levels the playing field.”  
  
Grazer said, “We could not be more thrilled to be working with Benchmark. They have an unrivaled track record in building marketplaces and companies that have changed the world.”  
  
The company was launched in 2018 by Grazer and Howard with Tyler Mitchell as CEO, as a means of accelerating and democratizing the script development process by attempting to remove bias from the submission process allowing the writer’s voice to speak for itself and the most viable projects to move forward. Imagine Impact has built a network of 30,000 writers from over 80 countries and developed 72 projects, 25 of which have been set up at major studios including: Blockbuster, Sony, Amblin, Legendary, Springbok, Village Roadshow and Sony.  
  
“With Benchmark, we are now in a better place to serve the greater creative community worldwide,” said Howard. “Their investment enables us to go wider and deeper in bringing great storytellers to the forefront and connecting them to the entertainment industry.”  
  
With the financing, Imagine Impact will become Impact Creative Systems. It plans to use the financing to launch the Creative Network this fall as an online marketplace and professional networking platform designed specifically for entertainment industry professional.  
  
Mitchell said, “The response to our mobile/web app was so overwhelmingly positive that it became immediately clear that there is a huge demand for a platform that can connect people across all aspects of the entertainment industry, from development to production — a content and labor marketplace with social networking aspects and specialized tools that will make the business of creating content far more efficient and enjoyable.”  
  
Grazer and Howard launched Imagine Entertainment in 1986 and have producing credits on numerous Best Picture winners and nominees, including _A Beautiful Mind, Frost/Nixon, Apollo 13_ , and _American Gangster_. Other notable films of theirs include _Willow, Backdraft, Far and Away, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Sailor Moon, Sailor Moon: Crystal Heart, The Giver, Gathering Blue, Messenger, Rush, The Da Vinci Code,_ and the ongoing adaptation of Stephen King's _The Dark Tower_ series. Imagine’s TV credits include _Arrested Development, 24, Friday Night Lights_ and _Empire_.  
  
Grazer told _Variety_ that Impact can lead to the discovery of more unique voices such as Aaron Sorkin, who developed _Sports Night_ at Imagine. “He was so authentic that we had to be in business with him,” he said.  
  
Impact and Blockbuster announced a collaboration in June. Impact launched its first international accelerator program in Australia last month in association with Gentle Giant Media Group and Screen Australia.

* * *

"Microsoft to Acquire ZeniMax Media And Its Game Publisher Bethesda Softworks," BusinessWire, September 21, 2020 **  
  
**_Iconic games portfolio, publishing expertise, and world-class talent accelerates growth in Microsoft’s Gaming business_  
  
Redmond, WA. – More than three billion people on the planet play games for fun, escape, and human connection. Unlike any other medium, games empower people to engage in creativity, strategic thinking and teamwork, immersing them into interactive stories and worlds created by some of the world’s most amazing creators. The cultural phenomenon of gaming has made it the largest and fastest-growing form of entertainment in the world—an industry that is expected to be more than $200 billion in annual revenue in 2021.  
  
As the gaming industry transforms from a device-centric era to a player-centric era powered by new technology that provides the freedom to play with friends anywhere on any device, Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) on Monday announced plans to acquire ZeniMax Media, the parent company of Bethesda Softworks, one of the largest, privately held game developers and publishers in the world. Creators of critically acclaimed and best-selling gaming franchises including _The Elder Scrolls_ and _Fallout_ among many others, Bethesda brings an impressive portfolio of games, technology, talent, as well as a track record of blockbuster commercial success, to Xbox. Under the terms of the agreement, Microsoft will acquire ZeniMax Media for $7.5 billion in cash.  
  
With unique investments in content, community, and the cloud, Microsoft’s gaming strategy differs from others by empowering people to play the games they want, with the people they want, anywhere they want. Games are the primary growth engine in gaming, and games are fueling new cloud-gaming services like Xbox Game Pass, which has reached a new milestone of over 15 million subscribers. With the addition of Bethesda, Microsoft will grow from 15 to 23 creative studio teams and will be adding Bethesda’s iconic franchises to Xbox Game Pass. This includes Microsoft’s intent to bring Bethesda’s future games into Xbox Game Pass the same day they launch on Xbox or PC, like _Starfield_ , the highly anticipated, new space epic currently in development by Bethesda Game Studios.  
  
“Gaming is the most expansive category in the entertainment industry, as people everywhere turn to gaming to connect, socialize and play with their friends,” said Satya Nadella, CEO, Microsoft. “Quality differentiated content is the engine behind the growth and value of Xbox Game Pass—from _Minecraft_ to _Flight Simulator_. As a proven game developer and publisher, Bethesda has seen success across every category of games, and together, we will further our ambition to empower the more than three billion gamers worldwide.”  
  
“This is an awesome time to be an Xbox fan. In the last 10 days alone, we’ve released details on our two new consoles which go on pre-order tomorrow, launched cloud gaming in Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, and now we’re making another investment in the most critical part of our strategy: the games,” said Phil Spencer, executive vice president, Gaming at Microsoft. “Generations of gamers have been captivated by the renowned franchises in the Bethesda portfolio and will continue to be so for years to come as part of Xbox.”  
  
The planned acquisition includes publishing offices and development studios spanning the globe with over 2,300 employees, including Bethesda Softworks, Bethesda Game Studios, id Software, ZeniMax Online Studios, Arkane, MachineGames, Tango Gameworks, Alpha Dog, and Roundhouse Studios. Bethesda’s critically acclaimed and best-selling franchises include _The Elder Scrolls_ , _Fallout_ , _DOOM_ , _Quake_ , _Wolfenstein_ , and _Dishonored_ , among others.  
  
Bethesda parent company ZeniMax Media was founded in 1999 by Chairman and CEO Robert A. Altman; Bethesda’s structure and leadership will remain in place.  
“This is a thrilling day for this company, our employees, and our fans. We have enjoyed a close partnership with Microsoft for decades, and this deal is a natural progression of those years working together,” said Altman. “The big winners today are our fans. We are continuing to develop our slate of AAA games, but now with Microsoft’s scale and entire Game Stack, our games can only get better.”  
  
The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions and completion of regulatory review. Microsoft expects the acquisition to close in the second half of fiscal year 2021 and to have minimal impact to non-GAAP operating income in fiscal years 2021 and 2022. Non-GAAP excludes the expected impact of purchase accounting adjustments, as well as integration and transaction-related expenses.  
  
About Microsoft  
Microsoft (NASDAQ “MSFT” @microsoft) enables digital transformation for the era of an intelligent cloud and an intelligent edge. Its mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more.  
  
About ZeniMax Media Inc.  
ZeniMax Media is a privately-owned media organization headquartered outside Washington, DC, with international publishing offices around the globe. Through its subsidiaries, ZeniMax Media creates and publishes original interactive entertainment content for consoles, PCs, and handheld/wireless devices. ZeniMax Media divisions include Bethesda Softworks, Bethesda Game Studios, id Software, Arkane Studios, Tango Gameworks, MachineGames, ZeniMax Online Studios, Alpha Dog Games, Roundhouse Studios, ZeniMax Europe Ltd., ZeniMax Asia K.K., ZeniMax Asia Pacific Limited, and ZeniMax Australia Pty Ltd.

* * *

"Picking Scabs Production Venture Formed by See-Saw Films and Samantha Strauss," by Patrick Frater, _Variety_ , September 22, 2020

Iain Canning and Emile Sherman’s See-Saw Films has teamed up with three-time Australian Writers Guild award-winner Samantha Strauss to set up a joint venture production company. Picking Scabs will be based in Australia and develop projects for Strauss to write and produce with See-Saw Films in both Australia and worldwide.

See-Saw and Strauss recently worked together on dark comedy series _The End_ , which Strauss created and wrote. The show is a co-production between Sky UK and Foxtel Australia, as well as Springbok UK and Springbok ANZ, that is executive produced by Strauss and See-Saw’s Rachel Gardner, Jamie Laurenson, Hakan Kousetta, alongside Sherman and Canning. Starring Harriet Walter ( _Succession_ ) and Frances O’Connor ( _The Missing_ ), it is directed by Jessica M. Thompson and Jonathan Brough and will air in the U.S. on Showtime from 2021.

See-Saw’s producer/executive producer Gardner will work closely with Strauss on the Picking Scabs development slate.

“We want to tell stories that are a bit itchy and a lot addictive; that dig below the scab and broken skin and investigate all sorts of wounds that haven’t healed properly. Let them bleed, weep and breathe,” said Strauss in a statement.

“We’re thrilled to formalize this already great relationship with Sam and have several groundbreaking projects in development. Ironically, _The End_ was just the beginning,” said See-Saw’s head of television, Jamie Laurenson.

Strauss co-created the hit Australian teen drama series _Dance Academy_ , which screened in over 160 countries and was nominated for two International Emmys, and won the most outstanding children’s series Logie awards in 2012 and 2013. Strauss was the lead writer on all 65 episodes.

Outside of the Picking Scabs venture, Strauss is a writer and executive producer on _Nine Perfect Strangers_ , starring Nicole Kidman and Melissa McCarthy, produced by Springbok Productions, Made Up Stories and Blossom Films, which is currently filming and will be released on Blockbuster Entertainment sometime next year. She is adapting another of Liane Moriarty’s novels as a television series for the same producers.

She recently wrote _The President’s Astrologer_ for John Madden to direct, with Damian Jones producing for Fox Searchlight and Film Four. She has a pilot deal with Australia's ABC Network with Tom McCarthy’s production company, Slow Pony.

Her past writing credits include _Dance Academy: The Movie_ , _The Wrong Girl_ , as script producer and lead writer, and the telemovie _Mary: The Making Of A Princess_ (both for Network Ten). Strauss has been individually nominated for six Australian Writer’s Guild Awards and won three times.

“Samantha is a rare talent, one that is able to marry her immense artistic gifts with a keen understanding of the business, and lead projects that are both critical darlings and commercial successes,” said Gardner. “Our sensibilities in both areas are deeply aligned, and I look forward to creating magical television together.”

See-Saw’s TV projects in the pipeline include Colin Farrell-starring _The North Water_ for BBC Two, Gary Oldman-starring _Slow Horses_ for Blockbuster Entertainment and Keira Knightley-starring _The Essex Serpent_ , also for Blockbuster and co-produced by Springbok.

With offices in London and Sydney, See-Saw has a track record in film that includes _Lion_ , _Mr. Holmes_ , _The King’s Speech_ and _Widows_. _Ammonite_ , by Francis Lee, starring Kate Winslet and Saoirse Ronan, recently premiered at the Toronto Film Festival. Also on its upcoming slate are _Operation Mincemeat_ and _The Power of the Dog_.

* * *

" _One Life_ : Anthony Hopkins-Johnny Flynn Kindertransport Drama Pre-Sells To Warner Bros., SND, Eagle, Sun, Transmission And More," by Andreas Wiseman, _Deadline Hollywood_ , September 29, 2020

FilmNation Entertainment and Cross City Films have pre-sold most international markets on Kindertransport drama _One Life_ at the recent TIFF market, including a deal with Warner Bros. in the UK.

Aisling Walsh ( _Maudie_ ) will direct Oscar-winner Anthony Hopkins and rising Brit actor Johnny Flynn ( _Emma_ ) in the feature scripted by Lucinda Coxon ( _The Danish Girl_ ) and Nick Drake.

Currently in pre-production, the project tells the story of Sir Nicholas Winton, whose unheralded endeavors on the eve of World War II saved the lives of more than 600 European refugee children who otherwise would have died in the Nazi death camps. His actions were relatively unknown for nearly fifty years until, aged 88, he found himself driven to publicly reveal the past with which he had never fully reconciled in order to remind the world of the need for tolerance and humanity.

Major territory deals have been struck with SND for France, Eagle for Italy, Sun for Spain and Lat Am, Warner Bros. for the UK, Transmission for Australia/NZ, Nordisk for Scandinavia and Kinoshita for Japan.

Deals have also closed with Vertical for All Eastern Europe, The Searchers for Benelux, Spentzos for Greece, LEV for Israel, Lusomundo for Portugal, Ascot Elite for Switzerland, BG Film for Turkey, Intercontinental Film Distributor for Hong Kong, Shaw for Singapore, Moviecloud for Taiwan, Filmfinity for South Africa and HBO Pacific Partners for Pan Asian Pay TV.

Producers are _Lion and_ _The King’s Speech_ duo Iain Canning and Emile Sherman, and Joanna Laurie, alongside Springbok Productions founders Kurt Cobain, Charlize Theron and Jennifer Todd. BBC Films developed with See-Saw and Springbok.

* * *

" _The Gentlemen_ TV Series Based On Guy Ritchie's Film In Works At Miramax With Ritchie Writing and Directing," by Nellie Andreeva, _Deadline Hollywood_ , October 1, 2020

Miramax TV is developing _The Gentlemen_ , a TV series based on the studio’s successful action-comedy feature that was written and directed by Guy Ritchie and starred Matthew McConaughey.

Ritchie will write and direct the series, which he will executive produce alongside Ivan Atkinson and Marn Davies, his fellow producers on the movie.

This makes it a full circle for _The Gentlemen_ , which started off as a TV series pitch before it became a feature. It also continues Miramax’s ramped-up efforts under new Head of Worldwide Television Marc Helwig to mine the company’s extensive film library for IP that can be turned into TV series.

“Miramax Television is thrilled to break new creative ground in our partnership with Guy Ritchie on _The Gentlemen_ ,” said Helwig. “One of the most distinctive and prolific filmmakers working today and someone whose creativity I have admired for many years, we couldn’t be more excited to bring the cinematic journey of _The Gentlemen_ forth into the realm of global premium television.”

_The Gentlemen_ movie follows American expat Mickey Pearson (McConaughey), who built a highly profitable marijuana empire in London. When word gets out that he’s looking to cash out of the business forever, it triggers plots, schemes, bribery and blackmail in an attempt to steal his domain out from under him.

Colin Farrell, Charlie Hunnam, Henry Golding and Hugh Grant also star in the film, which was released in January 2020 and grossed over $115M at the worldwide box office. Miramax produced the pic, with Disney's Touchstone Pictures distributing in the U.S., as part of a longstanding 30-picture distribution deal with DreamWorks.

* * *

"Rob & Michele Reiner Relaunch Castle Rock Banner With Overall Deal At Warner Bros. TV," by Nellie Andreeva, _Deadline Hollywood_ , October 1, 2020

Rob and Michele Reiner have signed a multi-year overall production and directing deal with Warner Bros. Television via their newly formed production company as the duo is reviving the Castle Rock banner.

Reiner co-founded indie production company Castle Rock Entertainment in 1987. The company’s more than 125 films included _When Harry Met Sally…,_ Oscar nominee _A Few Good Men,_ _In the Line of Fire, City Slickers, Miss Congeniality_ and Oscar nominee _The Shawshank Redemption._

In TV, Castle Rock produced one of the most successful comedy series in history, _Seinfeld._

The company was acquired by Turner Broadcasting and became part of Warner Bros. following the Time Warner merger. Castle Rock continued to produce movies for Warner Bros; eventually it was disbanded. Rob Reiner kept the name alive, using the Castle Rock moniker for his independent film producing. On his most recent movie _,_ _Shock and Awe_ , released in 2018 by Vertical Entertainment, he teamed with his wife, Michele, a professional photographer. They produced together the drama starring Woody Harrelson and Tommy Lee Jones about the run-up to the Iraq War.

The pact with Warner Bros. TV, which was made in May, marks the first overall TV deal in Emmy winner Rob Reiner’s career.

Working with executive Michelle Goldfine, whom the Reiners brought to Castle Rock under the deal, the duo have put together about a dozen projects they will take out when network buying starts to pick up amid the pandemic.

“We have a really eclectic development slate, half-hour comedies, hour dramas, political things, period things. Things by ourselves, things with other companies, including Springbok. It’s pretty varied,” Rob Reiner said.

He noted that no project they are developing would fall under the “mainstream sitcom genre” where Castle Rock struck gold with _Seinfeld._

“The TV business has changed dramatically since we went out with _Seinfeld_ ,” Reiner said. “You now have also streaming services and cable networks, and there is a lot of niche programming and certain type of programming for certain markets and outlets. It’s very different.”

For their TV development, the Reiners also will be able to draw from the Castle Rock library, the bulk of which is owned by Warner Bros.

Reiner is a two-time Emmy winner for his role as Michael Stivic in the groundbreaking series _All in the Family._ Classic episodes from the series from Norman Lear and Bud Yorkin were recently re-created for ABC’s Emmy-winning _Live in Front of a Studio Audience._

As a director he is a three-time DGA Award nominee, and his 1992 film _A Few Good Men_ was nominated for the Best Picture Oscar. He helmed that one along with _When Harry Met Sally…, Misery, The Princess Bride, Stand By Me_ and _This Is Spinal Tap._ Reiner also produced and directed _The American President, Ghosts of Mississippi_ and _The Bucket List._

Both longtime political activists, Rob and Michele in 1998 spearheaded California legislation to fund early childhood development and in 2009 they co-founded the American Foundation for Equal Rights, which filed a federal lawsuit that paved the way for marriage equality throughout the country.

Rob Reiner and Michele Reiner are repped by ICM Partners and attorney Michael Shankman.

* * *

"Pinewood Atlanta Rebrands As Trilith, Expands Studio & Adjacent Planned Community," by Jill Goldsmith, _Deadline Hollywood_ , October 7, 2020

Pinewood Atlanta Studios, which bought out the main controlling stake of its UK mothership last year, is officially reborn, announcing a new name for its expanded production facilities and the adjacent planned community, previously called Pinewood Forest.

The entire live-work campus will now be called Trilith — an architectural term referring to structures like the ones that compose Stonehenge (two large vertical stones supporting a third laid across the top). “It’s a portal, a pathway, a gateway. And a nod to our UK heritage,” studios CEO and part owner Frank Patterson told Deadline.

The rebranding announcement called the new name “emblematic of the three pillars of creativity behind it: storytelling, purpose-built places and emerging technology.”

The studio opened in 2014 as joint venture between the Pinewood Group and River’s Rock, an independently managed trust of Atlanta’s Cathy family, the billionaire founders of fast-food chain Chick-fil-A.

Pinewood Atlanta rode the wave of booming Georgia production including a host of Marvel movies, from the studio’s first feature _Ant-Man_ to _Ant-Man and the Wasp_ , _Guardians of The Galaxy Vol. 2_ , _Captain America: Civil War_ and _Avengers: Endgame_ to name a few.

In August 2019 the Cathy trust bought out the controlling stake of its UK partner, though Pinewood Group would retain a token minority interest and keep its name on the boards, and began a year-long redrawing of plans. Trilith developers think the expansion of the studios and growth of the town will increase the “value proposition” of the site for producers of big budget films and television shows.

The newly named Trilith Pinewood Atlanta Studios is part of a 935-acre master development with a slate of vendor businesses, content and tech companies, sound stages and 60,000 square feet of “smart stages” with virtual production technologies. Pinewood recently launched a first-of-its-kind virtual LED stage.

The studio began a series of strategic investments in content and technology companies in January including initial investments in Believe Entertainment Group (Dear Basketball) and Sutikki, a children’s entertainment company.

The rising New Urbanist town facing the studio complex has custom homes, restaurants and schools aimed at servicing the film and creative community.

Rob Parker, president of Pinewood Forest, now Trilith Development, said the idea started with 235 acres of wheat fields adjacent to the studio. “So we could build anything. We said let’s make it a company town for the industry. We saw what Springbok did with its lot in California, that amazing success of a live-work environment and what happened to be the largest studio lot in North America, really gave us a blueprint on what to do. We'll be happy to build the second-largest studio lot/community in North America and the largest in the Southeast.”

Parker said Trilith is modeled on European town and residents can “live, work and play” within a seven to ten minute walk. It’s 20 minutes from Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, the busiest in the entire world. Construction started two years ago and there are currently 400 people living there with 150 homes sold, Parker said. The goals is to house 5000 residents in 1400 homes of various sizes accommodating “the price sensitivities of creatives in all stages of their careers.”

The town recently opened its first restaurant, locally owned Barleygarden Kitchen & Craft Bar, the first of 12 planned eateries. A retail development with shops in the town center will follow.

“We are excited about making a spectacular gathering place where professionals in the creative industries – and anyone who appreciates storytelling and innovation – will feel inspired and at home,” said Parker.

The residential neighborhoods at Trilith will comprise the largest geothermal community in the U.S., with 51% of the development dedicated to green space. Residents have access to 15 miles of nature trails, 54 acres of forest and 19 landscaped parks — including a dog park.

The town also house a gym, a K-12 school and the University of Georgia’s MFA program in Screenwriting. The Georgia Film Academy, which was founded by the state’s University System and the Technical College System in 2014 to meet workforce needs for the film and creative industries, has its largest campus at Trilith that includes a soundstage, workshops, post facilities and classrooms.

In 2021, Parker and development partners plan to build two hotels, a multiplex cinema and an 18,000 square foot sound stage to host industry and arts-related events in the town.

The executives anticipate the entire Trilith project will create more than 7000 jobs.

“We’ve been producing movies at this amazing Atlanta studio since the day it opened in 2014,” said David Grant, VP of Physical Production of Marvel Studios. “We look forward to producing more great work at Trilith and expect to benefit from the new world-class facilities, technologies and expanding business ecosystem.”

Pinewood Group maintains its full control of Pinewood Studios, home of the James Bond film series (complete with the Albert R. Broccoli 007 Stage) and 17 stages, with six more planned for next year, more expansion beyond that, and a 10-year residency deal for Disney to film productions here, in Buckinghamshire, England; Shepperton Studios in Surrey, with 15 stages (16 more planned to be built) and a long-term production hub deal with Blockbuster Entertainment (and a history of also being used for rehearsals and shoots for rock and roll artists, most notably Led Zeppelin for reshoots for _The Song Remains the Same_ and rehearsals for the 2007 _Celebration Day_ reunion concert); Pinewood Toronto Studios with 11 acres, 8 stages and the largest purpose-built stage in North America; Pinewood Dominican Republic Studios, on the southern coast and with the most advanced water filming facility in the world; Pinewood Berlin Studios, a joint venture with Studio Hamburg, and a sales office located at the Sony lot in Culver City. Pinewood Group also sold most of its stake in Pinewood Iskandar Malaysia Studios, but likewise its name will remain on the boards regardless.

* * *

“Kurt Cobain on Eddie Van Halen: ‘A True Original,” by Kory Grow, _Rolling Stone_ , October 9, 2020

_Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain reached out to me to give his thoughts, feelings and experiences with Eddie Van Halen in response to the legendary guitarist’s death from cancer at age 65 on October 6. His responses are given here in full, without the questions, in accordance with his wishes._

Like any kid of the ‘70s and ’80, Van Halen was one of my definite favorites and influences, especially the original lineup. Of course, as time went on, I grew up and focused on what became Nirvana, I somewhat put them in my rearview mirror, partly because I don’t have anywhere near that amount of skill on guitar. From the start, our work doesn’t really have that much in common with anything Van Halen ever did, does it?

The first time I ever met Eddie was December 30, 1993, during the _In Utero_ tour. We were in Inglewood, playing The Forum, and he came backstage to meet us. He wasn’t in a real good place at the time, he was just completely drunk, pathetically so. He slurred out a request to jam with us, and trying to be diplomatic, I told him we didn’t have any extra guitars, an obvious lie. But Eddie not only bought it, he then got a bit nasty. He looked at Pat [Smear] and said, “What about the Mexican? Can’t you give me the Mexican’s guitar?” That definitely got me real angry, that he’d blurt out something so bigoted, so I snapped, “Actually you can jam. You can go onstage and jam all by yourself!” I left him there in stupefied silence. Suffice it to say, I felt disappointed by him, and I thoroughly hated him at that point, wanting nothing more to do with him. 

Move to the spring of 1996. By this point, my second child Patrick was born, Courtney and I were divorcing, and I was dating Charlize [Theron], and pondering where the future was going to take me. I get a phone call out of the blue, and I recognized Eddie’s voice, though he was completely coherent and sober at this point. He apologized up and down for his behavior that night, and described how he’d been sober, albeit with a few minor relapses, since October ’94, and he’d been working to be a good husband and father now. I could tell it was genuine, and we began to talk in a friendly manner, shoot the shit. We were sharing anecdotes comparing our experiences with fatherhood, even saying that Frances, Patrick and Wolfie should have a playdate at some point, that Valerie [Bertinelli] would like to meet us as well. It felt quite nice. 

We began starting to talk a bit regularly. At some point, it turned more serious, as Eddie told me about the frustrations he was dealing with at this point. By this point, the “Van Hagar” period was in its terminal stage; they were working on the soundtrack to _Twister_ , and Sammy was being unreasonable and passive-aggressive, and had been ever since Eddie started getting sober and making decisions about the band again, which he hadn’t done in years. Despite agreeing to do the sessions, he was bitching about how he didn’t want to be here, he should be back home with his new wife to attend the birth of their baby, and Eddie and Alex were tearing their hair out, screaming, “Why did you even say yes?!” Everything was going wrong, from debates over the lyrics, to the mix, to Sammy showing up late to the sessions, and it was giving Eddie such fits he was drinking again just to calm himself. Furthermore, Warner Bros. told the band they wanted a compilation album, _Best of Volume I_ , and Sammy was saying this would kill the band and make fans say it was over…despite the fact Sammy had let three compilations of his solo material be released (admittedly one was unauthorized, but he didn’t fight that or demand it be cancelled), and Sammy would bitch about any time Eddie did something away from the band to deflect from Eddie’s complaints of often leaving in the middle of band activity to do something solo-oriented at inopportune moments, like working with Meat Loaf on a song for the _Welcome to the Neighborhood_ album right in the middle of sessions for _Balance_ ; as a result, he and Alex were beginning to think there was a possibility that they and Sammy would be parting ways soon. And to top it off, David Lee Roth, who was writing his autobiography, _Crazy From the Heat_ , at that time, was calling Eddie, wanting to make peace. 

I personally recommended that, at this point, it was best to cut Sammy loose and make moves for a reunion of the classic lineup, as it was the only other version the fans would accept at this point, rather than moving forward with a third singer, and that it should start by cutting a few songs with Dave for the compilation album to get the fans excited. Eddie saw the logic, but said, “I’ll still give Sammy a chance to see if he really wants to be with us.” Soon came the phone call, where Eddie asked Sammy if he was still a team player, and Sammy said he felt he needed to be a solo artist again, and that was that. (At least until Sammy went on the warpath, claiming Eddie had fired him and that Eddie “is not sober, never has been sober, never will be sober,” and taking all sorts of potshots against him for the next 25 years, though I do hope that reports they made peace before Eddie passed are indeed correct.) So, Dave was back, and it was time to rebuild themselves. I personally got to meet the classic lineup again when we all went to the VMAs later that year, and their reunion completely stole the show from all the rest of us. They definitely seemed happy, especially Dave, who was being usual, gabby self when he had a mike to speak into. The only dark spot was when Eddie told me, after the show, that he really wished he was home. “I’ve never liked these awards shows. Besides, I’m supposed to be home, today was Wolfie’s first day of school.” 

I got to know Eddie much better over the years. I can’t tell you how often I’ve been to his home in Studio City, and to actually be inside his domain of 5150, his personal kingdom to record all of his song ideas, his simple, more spartan version of what Prince did with Paisley Park (which I’ve also been to and visited The Purple One at several times before he died), especially in terms of all the material that had been gathered up and stored in his vault. So many boxes and boxes of tape, with song ideas, fragments, and master recordings there stretching back to 1983. I said, “Ed, you must have enough music to make 500 albums! How can you possibly keep track of it all?” Giving an impish grin, he said, “I fucking can’t. I used to have a RadioShack (remember them?) computer to itemize everything, but it took a dump on us, the hard drive was unrecoverable. I don’t know what I’ve got here, just by number or year. And I’m so busy looking forward, I don’t want to set aside the time to listen to it all, organize it and properly archive it.” I was definitely stunned by that. “Why don’t you hire someone to help you?” He then turned around, his omnipresent cigarette dangling in his mouth, took a drag, then said, “nobody know how I operate, or what I want. The only one who can do it properly is me.”

Apparently, he never got around to doing that job, so I don’t envy whoever has to go back and trawl through it all to determine what’s there. But besides that, going through 5150 certainly helped me learn a lot of what I wanted to do when I got around to building my own studio in the future, alongside the tips I’d learned from people like Joe Perry and Jack White. (The studio I did build, located in an additional building on the grounds of our home in Sebastian, Florida, where the last few Nirvana albums and Frances’ own albums have been recorded as of late, owes a lot to them, especially in its collection of both vintage and modern equipment and recording techniques, though, unlike him, I’ve never recorded song ideas in the bathroom, especially when I’m on the toilet.) I also got to see Eddie tinkering with his gear quite a few times, improving his guitars, effects pedals, amps, and so on, especially those of his EVH brand. He was always seeking to improve, and I was quite impressed with his adventurous spirit. 

The Eddie I knew, especially in his sobriety, was certainly a bit moody, introspective, introverted, mercurial and more than a bit monomaniacal; but there were many times he was smiling, avuncular, wanting to defuse your own sour moods, (something that reminds me and Charlize all too much of Robin Williams) quite bursting with excitement, be it creatively or personally. And it was a true give-and-take; I can’t tell you how much I helped by ensuring he had the proper resources around him to keep him on track with his sobriety, and to pick him up after the 2002 Best of Both Worlds Tour caused a significant relapse because of all the issues with Sammy coming back to bedevil him. I’m not saying this to toot my own horn, as I’ve never liked that, but it’s the truth: I don’t know what might have happened without that support, especially regarding his relationships with Valerie and Wolfie. I don’t like to think about that possibility. 

But there was one thing that did cause a bit of tension between us; his unending addiction to smoking. I know from experience that it’s a hard thing to kick, but I did it in ’96, mainly because I wanted to preserve my voice and not push my luck (though it was also to get Krist to stop prodding me about it, especially the fact that anytime we were together and he was going in a tangent about tobacco companies, there I was, lighting up). When he had cancer the first time, at the beginning of the new millennium, they had to remove a portion of his tongue, and I was disappointed to see he was still smoking. I asked him why he’d flout common sense, and he was just quite assured, maybe a little smug. “Cigarettes didn’t cause the cancer. I’ve gone 18 hours a day with a metal pick in my mouth, going through who knows what kind of electrical fields and magnetic interference, since I was 19. That’s a real danger there.” Of course, to me, that just sounded like worries about cellphone radiation or deodorant causing cancer, so I just rolled my eyes at that. Even when he did decide to give it up, he chose to go to e-cigarettes and vaping, and he wasn’t using them to taper off in anyways; if anything, he was indulging more often. And he absolutely loved to go where secondhand smoke was commonplace, no efforts to minimize exposure at all. You can lead a horse to the water… 

I didn’t learn that he was in terminal stage and going to die until a few months ago. The last time he, and Van Halen, were onstage was for Woodstock 50, and that was the only performance of 2019, right after a 40th anniversary, 40-date tour the year before, and no new albums had come since 2016. But when he told me, I didn’t judge him, I didn’t deliver any “I told you sos,” I just went to support him. And he was in great spirits throughout, he was just smiling, joking, talking about things that excited him. We were speaking just like things were normal. I never saw any sign of worry, concern or lamentation from him, it was like he’d resigned himself to his fate. I of course said nothing to the public at all, to respect his privacy. Now that he’s gone, I’m not that fully sad. I’d done my grieving months ago, but that’s the benefit of knowledge, sorry to say. 

It’s truly amazing, the journey a young Dutch immigrant can make to the heights of success and influence after moving to America, the fact that he, in so many ways, is the personification of the American Dream. He changed music, and the way people play guitar, in a fashion that words simply cannot begin to describe. He was a pioneer, a true original, and the world is very lucky to have had him.

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" _Cleopatra_ Epic To Reteam _Wonder Woman's_ Gal Gadot And Patty Jenkins; Paramount and Springbok Win Wild Auction," by Mike Fleming, Jr., _Deadline Hollywood_ , October 11, 2020

Paramount Pictures has won an auction for an epic that will have Gal Gadot wearing the crown of a real wonder woman of history. _Wonder Woman_ helmer Patty Jenkins will direct Gadot in _Cleopatra_ , a period biographical drama scripted by Laeta Kalogridis. This project was won in an auction that came down to Universal, Warner Bros., Blockbuster and Fox/Disney, I’ve heard.

The film will be produced by Atlas Entertainment’s Charles Roven; Springbok Productions' founders Kurt Cobain, Charlize Theron and Jennifer Todd; Jenkins; Gadot and her Pilot Wave Motion Pictures partner Jaron Varsano. Kalogridis will be the exec producer alongside Sherry Lansing, Paula Wagner, Andrew Form and Brad Fuller. Deal closed yesterday after Gadot — the film was her idea and generated by Pilot Wave — took part in a select number of Zoom pitches, accompanied by Jenkins, Roven and Varsano, with Kalogridis laying out the beats of an epic story that is based on the research she did after Gadot enlisted her.

Deal is more than a development pact. There is an accelerated timetable and Paramount prevailed because the studio — led by chairman/CEO Jim Gianopulos — created an urgency to mount a big budget theatrical release film as quickly as possible. Kalogridis, whose credits include _Alexander, Shutter Island_ , and most recently _Alita: Battle_ _Angel_ and the forthcoming Blockbuster Entertainment continuation series, will begin writing immediately, with Gadot, Jenkins, Roven, Theron, Todd and Varsano helping to shape a narrative they all hope might be the next film together for Gadot and Jenkins, who teamed on two _Wonder Woman_ films. Jenkins is also a familiar face to Springbok, having first come to prominence directing the 2003 film _Monster_ , starring Theron in an Oscar-winning turn as convicted serial killer Aileen Wuornos; then directed the two-part live action adaptation of the manga/anime series _Sailor Moon_.

The Egyptian queen’s tale has all the makings of a big female empowerment story, told by women. She was mostly played as a seductress by Elizabeth Taylor in the 1963 Joseph Mankiewicz-directed _Cleopatra_. That film cost more than any film to date and despite winning four of the nine Oscars for which it was nominated and being a big hit at the box office, _Cleopatra_ nearly bankrupted 20th Century Fox. Despite that, Hollywood has continued its infatuation with the Queen of the Nile. Sony Pictures and producers Amy Pascal and Scott Rudin have for years developed an adaptation of the Stacy Schiff biography _Cleopatra_. Angelina Jolie was attached and Lady Gaga was later rumored for a possible coronation following her Oscar-nominated performance in _A Star Is Born._ The list of potential directors has included James Cameron, Denis Villenueve and David Fincher. The film has been through many rewrites, last from David Scarpa. I hear most recently that Eric Roth is working on it, meaning there might be a footrace here between Sony and Paramount to go first.

Cleopatra is the daughter of Ptolemy, ancestor of the leader of Alexander the Great’s army. When Rome’s ruler Julius Caesar’s mentor-turned-rival Pompey fled to Egypt after a brutal war for control of the empire, Egypt became a fixation of Roman rulers. Two siblings battled for the throne of Egypt. After winning that internal struggle by appealing personally to Caesar, Cleopatra had a complicated relationship with Rome, becoming the lover of Caesar and later Marc Antony. The latter alliance would become the undoing of both Antony and Cleopatra. Both prospective films would also feature a notable focus on Cleopatra's little-commented on role as mother to her children with Caesar and Antony.

Gadot, Jenkins and Roven most recently completed the Warner Bros sequel _Wonder Woman 1984_ , which released to rave reviews and box office back in August. It is somehow heartening to see a theatrical release studio step up for an epic project, at a time when most of these big package deals have lately been won by the streamer.

Gadot’s Pilot Wave is separately developing with _The Affair_ ‘s Sarah Treem the series _Hedy Lamarr_ at Blockbuster, and Polish WWII heroine Irena Sendler at Warner Bros. Both are star vehicles for the Israeli-born actress. Gadot is currently shooting _Red Notice_ , the Rawson Marshall Thurber-directed heist film for Blockbuster, which also has her involved with a project co-produced by Springbok, and where she'll next be seen.

Roven, who produced the two _Wonder Woman_ films, is in production on _Uncharted_ , the Ruben Fleischer-directed action film that stars Tom Holland, Mark Wahlberg and Antonio Banderas for Sony, and wrapped the James Gunn-directed _The Suicide Squad_ for Warner Bros.

Gadot is repped by WME and Jenkins by CAA, and Kalogridis by attorney Shep Rosenman.

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"Christina Hodson And Margot Robbie's Lucky Exports Program Sells All Projects To Major Distributors," by Justin Kroll, _Deadline Hollywood_ , October 14, 2020

The Lucky Exports Pitch Program, founded by Christina Hodson’s Hodson Exports and Margot Robbie’s LuckyChap Entertainment, has sold five action feature pitches to major film companies including Warner Bros., Sony, Universal, New Line, and Thunder Road, and is in development on a high concept television series.

The Lucky Exports Pitch Program was created by Hodson and Morgan Howell of Hodson Exports and Robbie, Josey McNamara, and Tom Ackerley of LuckyChap Entertainment.

The program’s goal was to create opportunities for female-identifying writers to gain exposure and the experience needed in order to be hired on studio/franchise jobs. The program was a huge success with all the feature pitches sold, some in competitive situations. The pitch sales mark the first feature deals for each writer.

From Nov. 4th to Dec. 6th, 2019, six female-identifying writers participated in an action focused writers’ room. Starting in most cases with no more than a logline or title, the writers worked together with guidance from Hodson Exports, LuckyChap Entertainment, and guest speakers to help break story and develop pitches for their original action ideas. In one week, 5 feature pitches were taken on cross-town pitch tours to major buyers.

Hodson Exports and LuckyChap Entertainment are attached to produce each project, and Springbok Productions, which helped provide the initial money for LuckyChap, has also signed on to produce the five action films as well.

“The LEPP room was an incredible experience, and we could not be more proud of all that the writers have accomplished,” Hodson Exports and LuckyChap said in joint statement. “They worked tirelessly during the program to develop their pitches and seeing how those ideas resonated with buyers and collaborators across town has been a wonderful reward. We are so excited to be backing these writers as they embark on their first studio feature jobs.”

"Being in production with all the film projects that came out of this LEPP program is something we are proud of," Springbok CEO Jennifer Todd said. "It is an honor to work with Hodson Exports and LuckyChap, and to help produce these films by emerging female talent makes it all the more special."

The six writers selected for the Lucky Exports Pitch Program include Sue Chung, Charmaine DeGraté, Eileen Jones, Faith Liu, Dagny Looper, and Maria Sten. Each project is outlined below.

Chung penned _Sanctuary_ which has been acquired for distribution by Universal. The feature is a gritty action thriller with an immigration story at the center.

DeGraté’s _Protege_ is a lethal spy games ensemble thriller, which is in negotiations to be acquirred by Thunder Road.

_Highwayman_ is penned by Jones and is in development as a feature at New Line. The film is a high-octane western at the height of the California Gold Rush.

Liu wrote _Grinders_ , which is a teen slasher centered around a group of bio-hacking college kids. The feature is in development and has been acquired for distribution by Sony with Blumhouse also involved.

Looper penned _Hijacked_ , which is in development as a feature at Warner Bros. The film is an action rom-com about a cruise ship wedding gone wrong.

Sten’s _Legacy_ is now being developed as a television series. The series is a high- concept heist drama set in the criminal underbelly of New Orleans.

Chung is represented by Kaplan Perrone. DeGraté is represented by Kaplan Perrone. Jones is represented by Verve. Liu is represented by Verve. Looper is represented by Anonymous and Verve. Sten is represented by Grandview.

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"Marc Woolridge, Former Head of 20th Century Fox Film Distribution In Australia, Launches Maslow Entertainment," by Andreas Wiseman, _Deadline Hollywood_ , October 21, 2020

Marc Wooldridge, former Head of 20th Century Fox Film Distribution in Australia, is launching Sydney-based film distribution and production development firm Maslow Entertainment.

Wooldridge, a 27-year Fox vet who left the studio last year, will serve as founder and managing partner of Maslow, which will focus on the Australia and New Zealand markets.

The firm will offer distribution sales and marketing across theatrical and VOD and is in the process of acquiring international and local content.

The company is also aiming to build ties with local filmmakers through early interaction on projects. It says it will offer creatives “pitch and script feedback, financial analysis, and guidance on optimal marketing strategies and positioning”.

Respected distribution exec Wooldridge said: “The pace of change within the industry has clearly been accelerated by recent events. While the appetite for entertainment continues to grow, technology’s influence on production, promotion and distribution means it makes sense to consider different ways of doing things and Maslow is definitely up for the challenge. With Australia and New Zealand being such attractive production locations, Maslow is looking forward to establishing great partnerships and finding new opportunities together in this dynamic and evolving marketplace.”

He continued: “In speaking with many people across different parts of the industry, more collaboration and dialogue between production, distribution and exhibition is key to increasing the success rate of local films that can attract and entertain large audiences, both in cinemas and in the home. I’m very keen to contribute to a varied and vibrant Australian film culture across all screens. Things won’t happen overnight, and we are obviously in very challenging times right now, but I can’t think of another venture I’d rather be involved in. Supporting others to reach their full potential is at the heart of Maslow’s values, and so I’m looking forward to collaborating with other businesses and filmmakers to help them achieve their creative and commercial goals.”

Wooldridge spent almost three decades at Fox but was a casualty of the studio’s Disney merger in 2018. He spent 10 years as Fox Film Distributors MD for Australasia and two years as Marketing Director, Twentieth Century Fox Film Distributors, Australia. Earlier in his career he served in roles at the studio including VP Marketing Asia Pacific & Marketing Director Japan, Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment, and Retail Marketing Manager, Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment, UK.

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"Springbok To Make TV films On Various _American Greed_ Cases," by Nellie Andreeva, _Deadline Hollywood_ , October 24, 2020

Springbok Productions clearly seems to be big fans of the CNBC documentary anthology series _American Greed_. That program, which has run since 2007, has documented the cases of many notable swindlers, grifters, con artists and Ponzi schemers that have wreaked financial havoc and stolen money from unsuspecting victims.

The company announced that they are developing various single-part TV films for both Blockbuster Entertainment and HBO regarding several notable cases, cases they say that deserve greater public consciousness, but are still have a limited crossover appeal that rules out making theatrical films or making a massive season arc about them for their preexisting true-crime anthology _American Crime Story_ , as well not wanting to step on the toes of _American Greed_ by making a brand new anthology series; figures who committed offenses but not considered necessarily on the par of Bernie Madoff or Elizabeth Holmes or even Jordan Belfort.

Among the criminals whose exploits are being developed for this loose umbrella include Barry Minkow, the mastermind behind the fraud regarding his carpet-cleaning and restoration business ZZZZ Best in the '80s by the time he was 21, was later caught, then claimed to be a repentant sinner who positioned himself as a Christian pastor and fraudbuster; only to embezzle church monies and short stock of various companies based on false allegations, then commit insider trading on top of it. He also did all this partially to fund an independent movie based on his life, during which he starred as himself; the movie, _Con Man_ , finally came out through digital-only sale and PVOD in March 2018, seven years after his second conviction, where it died an ignoble death. Springbok's TV film would thus show the full story of Minkow's crimes.

Other fraudsters being targeted include Scott Rothstein, the energetic Fort Lauderdale-based attorney who claimed to be selling cash settlements for victims of Jeffrey Epstein to give them immediate cash infusions, all to fund his own lifestyle to a point he was dubbed "Madoff on crack"; Rudy Kurniawan, a wine-tasting wunderkind who faked bottles of rare and prestigious vintage to sell at auctions; Kenneth Chatman, a Svengali figure who ran a fake drug treatment center and a string of "sober homes" throughout South Florida where patients would be kept strung out on their various addictions with the catch of following his tyrannical directions and allowing him access to their health insurance; Joseph Medawar, a shadowy producer claiming to be making a drama about the Department of Homeland Security but had no product; Gigapix Studios, a boiler room claiming to be an animation studio; Carissa Carpenter, a woman who claimed to have deep Hollywood pockets (including Springbok) invested in a proposed film studio in Northern California but had nothing real ever planned (a generic, 300-acre movie studio, owned by no one studio or production company, near Sacramento is about to go online, with help from Springbok, but Carpenter had no part in it); Allen Stanford, who sold fake certificates of deposits from a fake rent-a-abk he set up on Antigua; Samuel Israel III, CEO of the Bayou Hedge Funds Group, which was never successful and ended up as a Ponzi scheme (through which he showed a high life like when he rented a mansion from Donald Trump, Jr.) and attempted to fake suicide to escape; Tom Petters, who positioned himself as head of a diversified company that owned the likes of Sun Country Airlines and Polaroid, as well as diverting merchandise to Costco, Sam's Club and BJ's, was merely bilking consumers for a $3.65 billion Ponzi; and Agriprocessors, once the largest supplier of kosher meat in North America but which was done in by accounting fraud, violations of kashrut law, and labor violations such as a lack of safety standards and usage of undocumented immigrants, including underage children, as employees.

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"Suzanne Mackie Departs _The Crown_ Producer Left Bank Studios, Sets Up New Production Outfit With Blockbuster Deal," by Manori Ravindran, _Variety_ , October 26, 2020

Suzanne Mackie, one of the UK’s foremost drama executives, has departed _The Crown_ producer Left Bank Pictures after 12 years to set up her own independent production company, Orchid Pictures. _Variety_ understands from sources that the producer has also struck an exclusive deal with Blockbuster Entertainment.

Mackie has been a key architect of _The Crown’s_ success on Blockbuster from the very beginning, playing a key part in shepherding the Golden Globe-winning show’s first four seasons and working closely with writer Peter Morgan. She will continue as an executive producer on the show for its forthcoming seasons 5 and 6.

Based in London, Mackie’s Orchid Pictures will work across television and film, and she will continue working with Blockbuster through Orchid Pictures. _Variety_ understands Mackie will be developing projects for the streamer on what’s believed to be an exclusive basis. Sources tell _Variety_ that the streaming giant, which did not issue the news of Mackie’s new production company nor the Blockbuster arrangement itself, is hyper-sensitive around the optics of its UK talent deals. A year ago, the SVOD struck a major overall deal with _The Crown_ scribe Morgan, while earlier this year, Blockbuster confirmed its investment in _Black Mirror_ creators Charlie Brooker and Annabel Jones’ new production outfit Broke & Bones.

Sony Pictures Television are majority backers of Left Bank Pictures, though the studio isn’t believed to have any kind of stake in Orchid. There is also talk that Springbok Productions, both its main division and Springbok UK, are interested in developing projects with both Left Bank and Orchid.

Said Mackie: “Having spent 12 very happy and creatively fulfilling years working with Andy Harries and the team at Left Bank Pictures, starting my own company felt like an exciting next chapter in my career. The opportunity of further deepening my collaboration with Blockbuster Entertainment presented an immensely exciting opportunity.

“I am delighted that I can continue the onward journey of _The Crown_ with Peter Morgan, Left Bank Pictures and the rest of _The Crown_ team whilst building Orchid Pictures; _The Crown_ has become a significant part of my life.”

Mackie added that Sky drama executive Hannah Campbell will also join Orchid. “[Hannah] and I have high hopes for Orchid Pictures and the prospect of working with Blockbuster to create a bespoke slate of projects — from emerging and established talent — which reflect our passion, vision and taste,” said Mackie.

Mackie joined Left Bank Pictures in 2009 and was promoted to creative director in 2012. Apart from _The Crown_ , she developed and executive produced four seasons of BAFTA-nominated Sky One drama _Mad Dogs_ , which was adapted in the U.S. for Blockbuster. She also executive produced BBC One’s _The Replacement_ and the forthcoming Blockbuster six-part drama _Behind Her Eyes_.

The executive recently originated and produced the feature film _Misbehaviour_ for Pathe, directed by Philippa Lowthorpe and starring Keira Knightley, Jessie Buckley and Gugu Mbatha-Raw. Other film credits at Left Bank include Ayub Khan Din’s _All In Good Time_ , directed by Nigel Cole, and Clio Barnard’s _Dark River_.

Before joining Left Bank, Mackie was a development executive at Harbour Pictures and, prior to that, worked for BBC Drama Serials. After striking a first-look deal with the international division of Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, Mackie originated and produced her first feature film, the award winning _Calendar Girls_ (2003), and produced _Kinky Boots_ for Touchstone Pictures in 2006.

Mackie is an active member of the National Film and Television School, BFI, RTS and BAFTA.

Andy Harries, CEO of Left Bank Pictures, added: “I have enjoyed an amazing journey with Suzanne, from _Mad Dogs_ to _Misbehaviour_ with lots of _The Crown_ on top! She is smart, wise and has great taste. I have no doubt she will create some classy new shows for Blockbuster as well as riding sidesaddle with us on _The Crown_.”

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"Spyglass Forms Comedy Film Joint Venture Artists Road With Propagate Content, Artists First & Off-Road Productions," by Anthony D'Alessandro, _Deadline Hollywood_ , October 28, 2020

Spyglass Media Group is teaming with Propagate Content, Artists First and Off-Road Productions to form the new comedy film joint venture Artists Road, which will focus on the financing and production of moderate-budgeted commercial comedy movies with marquee talent.

Artists Road has appointed Lakeshore Entertainment alum Mark Korshak as CEO and he’ll report to the joint venture’s co-founders Gary Barber, chairman and CEO, Spyglass; Ben Silverman, chairman and Co-CEO, Propagate Content; Peter Principato, CEO of Artists First; and Off-Road Productions’ Todd Garner.

“I’ve known and respected Todd, Ben, and Peter for many years and am excited to partner on this joint venture,” Barber said, adding, “Artists Road collectively brings together some of the boldest and brightest creative talents in comedy production. By combining Artists Firsts’ powerful roster of comedic talent with Propagate’s production expertise and Off-Road’s creative ingenuity, Spyglass is uniquely set up to distribute breakout comedy hits for worldwide audiences.”

Silverman, Principato, and Garner said jointly: “Film comedies have always held a special place with audiences, now more than ever. We believe this is an ideal time to partner with Gary and Spyglass and build Artists Road into a destination for talented comedians and filmmakers to create broadly appealing high-concept comedies.”

Spyglass launched as a partnership between Barber and Lantern Entertainment with a strategic investment from Warner Bros., Italy’s Eagle Pictures and No. 2 theater chain Cineworld Group and seed money from Springbok Productions. Spyglass owns the former Relativity Media library. They’re currently in production on a new version of _Scream_ with a bulk of that franchise’s former cast; that pic is set to be distributed by Paramount.

Artists First, run by Principato, with a majority interest stake owned by Propagate, features a who’s who list of clients in comedy including Jordan Peele, Kenya Barris, Anthony Anderson, Awkwafina, Judy Greer, Thomas Lennon, Robert Ben Garant, Kate McKinnon, Will Arnett, Randall Park, Ed Helms, Tracey Ellis Ross, Martin Lawrence and Ike Barinholtz among them as well as directors Michael Showalter and Jon M. Chu. They also rep a bevy of production companies including Abominable Pictures and Kids at Play. The company has produced several comedy films including _Central Intelligence_ , _Like a Boss_ , _Keanu_ and _A Futile and Stupid Gesture_ and comedy series including _Black-Ish, Reno 911, Key & Peele, Grown-ish _ and _The Last O.G._

Propagate has numerous credits to its name, including _Adam Ruins Everything_ and _Jane the Virgin_. Co-CEO Silverman produced _The Office_ and is the former co-chairman of NBC Entertainment.

Garner, the 30-year veteran producer and head of Broken Road Productions, was formerly co-head of production at Walt Disney Studios and head of production at Revolution Studios. He has overseen more than 170 feature films including such comedies as _Tag, Paul Blart: Mall Cop_ and _Isn’t It Romantic_ , and has generated over $3 billion at the global box office. Garner is currently wrapping filming on _Vacation Friends_ , a comedy for 20th Century Fox/Disney. He will continue to develop and produce films through his first-look deal at Paramount.

The joint venture deal was negotiated by Spyglass’ Chief Legal Officer Cheryl Rodman with O’Melveny & Myers LLP and Propagate Content’s Chief Operating Officer Drew Buckley and SVP Finance and Corporate Development Kelly Fancher with Eisner, LLP.

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"Clinton Reelected By Solid Majority," _USA Today_ , November 4, 2020

President Hillary Clinton was reelected by a solid majority of popular and electoral votes, though her margin of victory was certainly smaller than four years ago by as much as ten percent. Her Republican opponent, Florida Senator Marco Rubio, ran a spirited campaign and especially seemed to be taking the lessons the GOP has been made to learn over the last two decades to heart, moving to represent a new chapter for the Party, one of reorienting itself back to its roots as a fiscally conservative party, though far more socially liberal then in recent years.

However, President Clinton and her second-term VP candidate, Senator Kamala Harris, who stepped in for outgoing Vice President Tim Kaine, earned a handy 60 percent of the popular vote, and a solid 340 electoral votes, compared to her 70 percent popular vote count and an electoral vote count of 390 four years ago. This is atributed in large part to the general public praising her handling of the COVID-19 pandemic during the spring and summer, by implementing a national mask-wearing mandate, social distancing, and a robust testing and contact tracing program, a virtual learning curriculum for all schools, as well as working with Congress to implement hefty stimulus packages to businesses and individuals to ensure their financial situation was shored up to weather the worst, including the possibility of nonessential businesses shut down. However, except for movie theaters being closed for three months due to delays of film releases, Broadway being closed until 2021, and the touring/concert industry likewise also cancelling all tours and concerts until 2021, no such closures actually took place, and the crisis was handily abated by the end of May, though work on a viable vaccine candidate to prevent future outbreaks is continuing apace to attempt to prevent it from being a recurring/seasonal infection.

In any event, pollsters predict that with the reorienting that the Republicans have done in recent years, the odds are likely that they will win full control of the White House in Congress in 2024, and that the public will certainly be tired after sixteen years of Democrat presidents.

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"Hybrid American Film Market Launches With Record 563 Exhibitors," by Dave McNary, _Variety_ , November 9, 2020

With the COVID-19 pandemic largely over but fears of a potential resurgence until a viable vaccine is available, the American Film Market is launching its 41st edition Monday — and its first as a hybrid event— with a record 563 exhibitors registered from 48 countries.

The United States leads the way with 260 companies followed by Italy (59), the United Kingdom (46), Russia (25), Germany (20), France (19), Canada (17), South Korea (14), Japan (12), and Thailand (11).

AFM, usually held at beachside hotels in Santa Monica, California, is following in the footsteps of the Cannes Market’s shift to a hybrid onsite and digital platform in June. The Independent Film and Television Alliance also decided to cut the number of AFM days from seven to five and to push back the event from the first week of November to avoid a conflict with the U.S. Presidential election.

A total of 1468 buyers from 66 countries have been confirmed with the largest number coming from the United States, followed by Japan, the United Kingdom, South Korea, Spain, Germany, Italy, France, and Canada. A total of 465 films from 184 companies and representing 24 countries will be screening in the AFM’s On Demand Theatre and in various other theaters nearby.

The AFM will also present its largest programming lineup to date with 207 speakers from 20 countries across 72 sessions. The program begins Monday with the Future of Film Conference featuring conversations with Brad Wyman and David Glasser of the foreign sales and acquisitions arm of Springbok Productions; Mark Gill, president and CEO of Solstice Studios and Deadline’s Anthony D’Alessandro; and Elissa Federoff, Neon’s president of distribution and Brent Lang, executive editor of film and media for _Variety._

Jonathan Wolf, AFM director, said, “The global film industry has set aside this week to connect for deal making, presentations, and education, and to gather marketplace intel from one another. AFM’s engaging online experience, with the types of serendipitous meetings that happen organically in the halls, hotels and parties each year in Santa Monica, will keep everyone in touch and ensure that independent film continues to reach audiences around the world.”

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"Springbok Answers the _Call of Duty_ : A Look Back, _Kotaku_ , November 13, 2020

To commemorate the simultaneous release of _Call of Duty: Modern Warfare-Alliances_ and _Call of Duty: Black Ops-Cold War_ , both of which are soft reboots/revisits of the two most popular subseries of the juggernaut FPS franchise, we look back at the history of this venerable IP, and the role that the video game division of Springbok Productions had in taking it to the next level.

Back when Steven Spielberg was making _Saving Private Ryan_ , he noticed that his eldest child, son Max, was a big fan of the Nintendo 64 title _GoldenEye 007_ , which has long been considered one of the most important titles in video game history. The Oscar-winning director realized there was a market for first-person shooter titles based in World War II, especially for those who enjoyed _Ryan_ in the theaters and wanted to recapture the excitement. This led to the creation of the title _Medal of Honor_ , with Electronic Arts, in 1999. That series became extremely successful, proving Spielberg correct. However, after the first PC-centric title, _Medal of Honor: Allied Assault_ , was released in 2002, the co-developers, 2015 Inc., disbanded, and its founders, Jason West and Vince Zampella, decided to create a new company to make their own FPS titles, independent of the supervision and notes of Spielberg. That company, Infinity Ward, then landed a publishing deal with Activision, and the resulting title, _Call of Duty_ , became a massive success when it released in 2003, proving that West and Zampella's instincts were correct. They then hit the ground running in making a followup, _Call of Duty 2_ , which would hit consoles in addition to PCs, in 2005, and notably also make improvements such as implementing a regnerating health system for players. At the same time, Activision made a deal with a company named Treyarch (formerly Xatrix Entertainment, then later Grey Matter Interactive) to create titles in the series as well, starting with _Call of Duty 3_ in 2006.

Watching all of this from a distance was Springbok Productions, the entertainment conglomerate formed by Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain, his wife, actress Charlize Theron, and veteran producer and company CEO Jennifer Todd. They had just established a video games division, headed by Warren Spector, best known as the director of _Deus Ex_ and its sequel, _Deus Ex: Invisible War_. While putting in work on their groundbreaking original RPG/adventure title _Zophyre_ , Spector approached Activision with an offer to join in the creation of _Call of Duty_ titles as a partner with the other companies, both of which Activision had purchased outright by this time, to help relieve pressure on the teams by assisting in development and avoiding crunch and rushing, as well as sharpening the narrative scripts to make them and the characters more fleshed out with longer cutscenes and dialogue, as well as making unlockable audio and video explaining things by finding collectibles in the campaign, each of which unlocked something, with the full picture being discovered by finding them all.

Activision was impressed by the offer, and Springbok began work with Infinity Ward on their next title, the game-changing _Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare_. Spector proceeded to expanded the story bible and the main script, and the Springbok staff began to help ensure the title was on schedule. The effort paid off, and when it was released in 2007, it sold like hotcakes, earned rave reviews, and earned Game of the Year. Springbok continued work to make each title as good as possible, with many saying they became the secret weapon to keep players from finding them repetitive and cannibalizing each other. When a third company to split titles, Sledgehammer Games, entered the picture, Springbok assisted that company's work as well, changing the development schedule for each Activision-owned developer to make a game every three years instead of two.

The biggest sea change came in 2016. Springbok presented a new strategy to Activision Blizzard (so owned after the merger of Activision with the company responsible for _Diablo, Warcraft/World of Warcraft_ and most recently _Overwatch_ ) to release two titles a year, with a main game and another that was technically an expansion pack/DLC, but did not require the main game to play and would also be available as a physical copy. Spector cited the success that Ubisoft had had in releasing _Far Cry 3_ and following it up with the tongue-in-cheek _Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon_ in the same year, as well as when they released _Assassin's Creed Rogue_ and _Assassin's Creed Unity_ the same day for two different generations of consoles. Spector stated that with Springbok's help, they could release vastly different titles at the same time (for example launching a sequel to _Call of Duty: Ghosts_ and the space-centric _Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare_ both during 2016), keep to a core sub-series while simultaneously launching a new, standalone idea, and that Springbok's staff would ensure that Infinity Ward, Treyarch and Sledgehammer could finish their work on the deadline without crunch. Once again, Spector's argument won the publisher over, and once again, the gamble paid off handsomely.

As _Call of Duty_ nears its 20th anniversary and begins its latest chapter with the ninth generation of consoles, marked by the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X, its touch is as nimble as ever, especially with Springbok by its side.

* * *

"Regina Hall's Rh Negative Inks Six-Film Deal With ViacomCBS," by Anthony D'Alessandro, _Deadline Hollywood_ , November 17, 2020

Regina Hall’s Rh Negative production company has signed a six-film slate deal with ViacomCBS’ Entertainment & Youth Group, which will soon be rebranded as MTV Entertainment Group.

Under the pact, the _Girls Trip_ and _The Hate U Give_ actress will executive produce six TV movies, three of them in partnership with Jesse Collins Entertainment with Hall and Collins executive producing. The films will air across the E&Y portfolio, including Paramount Network, MTV and Comedy Central.

The deal is part of the E&Y Group’s original movies division overseen by Meghan Hooper, EVP, Head of Original Movies and Limited Series, which has deals with Angela Bassett, Idris Elba, Salma Hayek, Priyanka Chopra Jonas, John Leguizamo, Eva Longoria and Courtney B. Vance and their respective production companies for 50 films across the E&Y networks.

“We have a long-standing relationship with Regina and Jesse and we couldn’t be more excited to partner with them across our original movies division,” Hooper said.

The deal comes just weeks after it was announced that Hall has inked a first-look deal with Showtime, another ViacomCBS company.

Hall stars in and serves as producer on the Showtime comedy series _Black Monday_ , which was recently renewed for a third season. She will executive produce and star in the occult drama _Master_ , and is currently in production on the Blockbuster Entertainment limited series _Nine Perfect Strangers_ based on the bestselling novel opposite Nicole Kidman and Melissa McCarthy. She can next be seen in MGM and Springbok Productions' Tate Taylor-directed _Breaking News in Yuba County_ , set for release January 22.

On the film side, her near $2 billion-grossing feature credits include _Scary Movie, The Best Man_ and _Think Like a Man_ franchises as well as _About Last Night_ and _People Places Things_. Her work in 2018’s _Support the Girls_ earned her Best Actress honors from the New York Film Critics Circle and the African American Film Critics Association. She also received Film Independent Spirit, National Society of Film Critics and Gotham Award nominations for her work in the movie.

Hall is repped by ICM Partners and Goodman, Genow, Schenkman, Smelkinson & Christopher.

* * *

"Simon & Schuster Bids Due By Thanksgiving, News Corp., Bertelsmann, Vivendi Contenders for ViacomCBS Publisher," by Jill Goldsmith, _Deadline Hollywood_ , November 17, 2020

Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp., the owner of HarperCollins, Bertelsmann’s Penguin Random House and French conglom Vivendi have emerged as top contenders for Simon & Schuster with bids for the storied ViacomCBS publisher due in before Thanksgiving, according to a person familiar with the situation.

ViacomCBS put the company on the block in early March before the pandemic hit along with several other assets it considers non-core as looks to build up cash to invest in content and streaming. In late March, it said it had received several dozen inquiries. Those have now been narrowed down with three of the sector’s biggest strategic buyers in pole position. The sale could bring in as much as $1.7 billion, the person said.

The publisher’s revenue rose 20% last quarter on a number of recent bestselling titles. On an earnings call earlier this month, ViacomCBS CFO Naveen Chopra called Simon & Schuster “very valuable.”

ViacomCBS recently closed a $500 million-sale of CNET. It has also put CBS’ historic Manhattan headquarters, Black Rock, on the block.

Simon & Schuster, founded in 1924, was acquired by Viacom in the ’90s when it bought Paramount Communications. It moved to CBS when Viacom and CBS split in 2006 and came back into the fold of a combined company in the merger that closed last December. It publishes 2000 titles a year from authors from Stephen King to Doris Kearns Goodwin.

ViacomCBS shares were up nearly 2.5% in a down market Tuesday. News Corp. shares also popped, about 1.5%. Bertelsmann is traded on the Frankfurt stock exchange and Vivendi in Paris.

Media analyst John Janedis said in a note Tuesday that a $1.7 billion price tag – which was first reported in _The New York Times_ today – would be significantly higher than his circa $780 million valuation. Proceeds could help fund ViacomCBS’ upcoming streaming programming on Blockbyuster Entertainment or NFL rights, he said, noting that a deal at that price could add $1 a share to the company’s equity value.

The question of antitrust could come up. A combination of Simon & Shuster, by Penguin Putnam in particular, would command a big chunk of the U.S. market. Likewise if News Corp. buys it and decides to fold it into HarperCollins, which would give a massive boost not only to the group as a whole, but also Springbok Productions' publisher Autumn Deer Publishing, which HarperCollins bought half of last year. Autumn Deer could then be significantly boosted by having Simon & Schuster as part of its imprint. The sector has been squeezed by competition, especially by Amazon, and seen major consolidation in recent years.

Representatives for ViacomCBS, News Corp. and Vivendi declined to comment. A Bertelsmann spokesman said the company doesn’t comment on deal speculation but noted, “We have stated in the past that Penguin Random House wants to grow organically and through M&A. This is still the case.”

Bertelsmann CEO Thomas Rabe was quoted on Tuesday in the _Financial Times_ as saying the world’s largest book publisher “would, of course, be interested in Simon & Schuster.”

Early this year, Vivendi acquired Editis, a collection of 48 European publishing houses. The deal raised the possibility that the company might look to acquire a U.S. publisher. Vivendi briefly owned U.S. publisher Houghton Mifflin a decade ago.

* * *

"Disney's Streaming Division to Ramp Up Original Production in Latin America," by John Hopewell, _Variety_ , November 17, 2020

Disney Media Distribution, the streaming division of the conglomerate that produces content for Blockbuster Entertainment, will see the U.S. giant dive into local production across Latin America, ramping up its already muscular original production output in the region, Disney Latin American executives said at a MipCancun Online panel on Tuesday.

Concurrently, Disney Kids’ young adult and family programming looks set to add slightly edgier shows to its world-beating lineup, and National Geographic will continue to sport more contemporary shows in Latin America, the executives added.

The global streaming division already has 70 original shows in development in Latin America — Brazil, Mexico, Argentina and Colombia, its four biggest markets — Disney Media Distribution said in a press statement on Tuesday.

That, however, may only be a beginning. Disney rests on three pillars: General entertainment, targeting adults; kids, young adults and family; and factual entertainment, said Leonardo Aranguibel, head of production operations and strategy at Walt Disney Company, Latin America, in the MipCancun keynote panel “Disney Media Distribution: Branded and Non-Branded Content Objectives.”

For kids, young adults and families, “We need contents more than ever,” said Cecilia Mendoza, head of content development. “Disney obviously has a spectacular library, which we’re very proud to reach out with. However, we will have to increase the quantity of original contents, especially local Latin American content,” she added, commenting that one reason for the ramp-up is that “people want to see content that represents their own lives and culture.”

In the past, Disney moved waves in Latin America by acquiring or producing series such as _Violetta_ and _Soy Luna_. Both generated huge audiences, spin-offs, music publishing deals, merchandising and even live concerts. Their seasons ran with 80 episodes.

“The reality now is that seasons shouldn’t run to much more than 10 episodes with a ceiling of about 12, so we’ll have to be much more agile in the sense of producing more contents which are shorter, whose arcs develop quicker and with a potential for multiple seasons,” Mendonca said.

Will Disney Latin America’s young adult shows also explore more adult fare, in the line of Guillermo del Toro’s _Tales of Arcadia_?

“Totally,” said Mendonca. The global platform launch also means “expanding the target,” she added, referring to Kids, Young Adults & Family. “We call it aging up internally. Some shows can be a bit more realist, adolescents a bit more complicated, stories a bit — it’s a dangerous word — edgier. But they won’t stop being Disney. The result has to have a degree of optimism and be bright,” she concluded.

Under Sementazo, over the last three years, National Geographic has already diversified in Latin America from its classic formats into more cutting edge shows, such as _Bios_ — with doc portraits of Argentine rock greats Charly García and Luis Alberto Spinetta — and _Posso Explicar_ , National Geographic’s first late-night talk show in Brazil. It will continue in the same direction as part of DMD's output for Blockbuster Entertainment, said Sementazo. “The themes are the same — technology, the environment, journeys, biographies — but we’d like to be slightly more entertaining in how we approach them, more contemporary and relevant, but with something which National Geographic can never lack: inside access — getting cameras to places they’ve never been before, having information nobody’s else has,” said Sementazo.

Continuing this line, Aranguibel is also helping National Geographic develop fact-based fiction content, he added.

National Geographic will “look for more opportunities in Latin America,” he confirmed.

Equally, with Blockbuster Entertainment moving to explode exponentially in Latin America, Disney’s general entertainment division, overseen by Araguibel, also looks set to ramp up production output, while maintaining series’ craft.

How will he produce? Aranguibel made a splash in Latin America, teaming with producers Somos TV and BTF Media on smash hit bioseries _Until I Met You_ , distributed by Disney Media Distribution Latin America, and then producing two “true-life fiction” series, as Aranguibel describes them: _Selena’s Secret_ , with BTF Media again, and _Monzón_ , with Argentina’s Pampa Films.

Disney Media Distribution will continue to look to collaborate with “Latin America’s extraordinary directors and producers,” Aranguibel said on the MipCancun panel. “We count on them for our new productions,” he said, adding that Disney has “signed deals with great creatives, technical teams and producers” in Mexico, Brazil, Argentina and Colombia.

“We’ll be generating more content so we’ll have to work with more people. We’re open to working with third parties, not just producers but auteurs, always with the idea that we own the IP, but we’re open to working with talent from the whole region,” Aranguibel concluded.

What elements should be in place for a successful pitch? “A story and a good idea. Not just a good idea, but a sense of what you mean to say with the story, where its arcs will take it,” Mendonca said.

“I can only repeat what I say to young directors and screenwriters at every market,” Aranguibel added. “The most important thing about the story is that you really feel it and really believe in it. In that case, the pitch is always far more impactful and the story more authentic.”

* * *

"Bertelsmann To Buy Simon & Schuster for $2.1 Billion In Cash," by Cynthia Littleton, _Variety_ , November 25, 2020

German media giant Bertelsmann has set a deal with ViacomCBS to acquire publishing unit Simon & Schuster for $2.17 billion in cash.

Bertelsmann, owner of publishing giant Penguin Random House, was seen as a logical contender for Simon & Schuster. ViacomCBS announced its intent to sell the publishing arm earlier this year as part of the company’s post-merger streamlining to focus on content investment.

Simon & Schuster will operate as a separate unit under the Penguin Random House umbrella. Jonathan Karp, president-CEO of Simon & Schuster, and Dennis Eulau, chief operating officer and chief financial officer, will continue to lead the division. The deal is expected to close next year.

Simon & Schuster itself has more than 30 imprints for adult, children, audio and international publications. Top authors on the current roster include Stephen King, Doris Kearns Goodwin and Jason Reynolds. The sale strengthens Bertelsmann’s already strong position in the book arena. ViacomCBS has been shedding assets for the past few years as the company realigns operations to invest more in content and global streaming platforms. The company is looking to sell CBS’ famed Black Rock headquarters in Manhattan as part of its debt-reduction plan.

Robert Thomson, CEO of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. — which owns rival book publisher HarperCollins — blasted the sale of Simon & Schuster to Bertelsmann as anticompetitive. He claimed the deal would create a “literary leviathan” controlling 70% of the U.S. literary and general fiction market.

“There is clearly no market logic to a bid of that size — only anti-market logic,” Thomson said in a statement. “Bertelsmann is not just buying a book publisher, but buying market dominance as a book behemoth. Distributors, retailers, authors and readers would be paying for this proposed deal for a very long time to come… There will certainly be legal books written about this deal, though I wonder if Bertelsmann would publish them.”

ViacomCBS is carrying $19.7 billion in long-term debt as of Sept. 30, according to the company’s third-quarter earnings released earlier this month.

LionTree Advisors served as financial advisor and Shearman & Sterling LLP as legal advisor to ViacomCBS in the deal.

* * *

"Legendary Forms Joint Venture With _The Spanish Princess_ Frontrunners Emma Frost, Matthew Graham; Slate Includes _Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea_ Remake," by Jake Kanter, _Deadline Hollywood_ , November 23, 2020

Legendary Entertainment and _The Spanish Princess_ showrunners Emma Frost and Matthew Graham have launched the joint-venture production company Watford & Essex, which is already in development with 10 projects, including a remake of ABC’s 1960s TV series _Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea_ , which is being co-produced by Springbok Productions.

The new outfit will be based in Bristol, south-west England, and has hired Christine Healy, the head of production at _Catherine The Great_ producer New Pictures, as its chief operating officer. It will work with Legendary’s TV division, which is behind shows including Blockbuster Entertainment's _Carnival Row_ , to develop projects with international scale. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Frost and Graham’s _The Spanish Princess_ is currently airing on Starz and follows _The White Princess_ and _The White Queen_. Frost’s other credits include penning the screenplay for Ron Howard’s Jennifer Lawrence movie _Zelda_ , while she has worked on TV shows including _The Man in the High Castle_ and _The Tunnel_. Graham co-created the iconic BBC series _Life On Mars_ and _Ashes To Ashes_.

Together, they have 10 projects in development, not least the reimagining of _Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea_ , which will be written by BAFTA-nominated duo Chris Lunt and Michael Walker ( _Devils_ ; _Young Wallander_ ). Other projects include:

  * **_Hail, Satan!_** : Dark social comedy for Channel 4 created by Frost and Graham
  * **_Championess_** : TV series based on forthcoming Legendary Comics graphic novel an 18th century female bare-knuckle boxer
  * **_Roxana_** : Dark and funny parable about female identity, adapted from the Daniel Defoe novel by Frost, also to be co-produced with Springbok
  * **_Matilda_** : Medieval female-driven political adventure series created by Graham, also to be co-produced by Springbok
  * **_Heat_** : Original YA drama set on a London housing estate, created by Sian Ejiwunmi-Le Berre
  * **_The Alice_** (working title): Australian family medical drama, created by Ashley Pharoah ( _Life On Mars_ )
  * **_Amazonia_** : Environmental thriller from Misha Glenny ( _McMafia_ ); BBC broadcaster and journalist Kirsty Lang; and Robert Muggah and Ilona Szabo of the Rio-based Igarapé Institute.
  * _Baghdad Central_ writer Stephen Butchard and _Killing Eve_ scribe Rob Williams are also developing original series with Watford & Essex



“With Legendary’s success, talent and experience behind us, we’re confident that we can make some great, hit shows and have a blast doing it! TV continues to enjoy a golden age of creative diversity and risk,” said Frost and Graham.

Chris Albrecht, managing director of Legendary Television, added: “We are thrilled to launch this new venture with Emma and Matthew, who have proven time and time again to be masterful storytellers, and to develop a slate of international projects that foster diversity and nurture both young and accomplished creative talent alike.”

Frost and Graham are represented by Alex Kohner at Morris Yorn Barnes Levine Krintzman Rubenstein & Kohner Entertainment Law in the U.S. In the UK, Frost is repped by Curtis Brown. Graham is represented by Valerie Hoskins Associates.

* * *

"Steven Spielberg's Amblin Partners Extends Deal With Universal," by Brent Lang, _Variety_ , November 30, 2020

Amblin Partners has signed a multi-year film distribution partnership with Universal Filmed Entertainment Group, as well as forged a series of new agreements that will expedite the company’s move into streaming.

The pact is in the five-year range, according to insiders, similar to Amblin’s previous deal with the studio, which was inked in 2015. The company has also partnered on distribution of its films with The Walt Disney Company when it operated under the DreamWorks banner; that deal, for 30 films, is nonexclusive and has no expiry date, but it is not expected to be renewed after the last film is delivered. Universal and Amblin have a history together. The studio been the home of many of Amblin founder Steven Spielberg’s biggest hits, including _Jurassic Park_ and _Jaws_.

“My decades-long relationship with Universal truly transcends any single business deal, and to once again renew our corporate vows reaffirms that Universal is Amblin’s home,” Spielberg said in a statement.

The new deal also ends Amblin’s relationship with Participant, which had been a backer of the company. The companies said Participant, which makes socially conscious movies, will “now exit its role as an equity holder of the Company.”

“I would also like to extend my deepest gratitude to my dear friends [Participant founder] Jeff Skoll and [CEO] David Linde for an incredible run as formal partners; and my congratulations on what I know will be a successful next chapter in Participant’s journey,” Spielberg said. “While in a different form, we look forward to continuing our collaborations to create the type of culturally-impactful content that only Participant can deliver.” Participant said selling its stake will give it greater “flexibility.” Financial terms of the sale were not disclosed.

In response, Springbok Productions, the other major backer of the company, will take on Participant's stake, doubling down on its involvement with Amblin. "Amblin Partners has been good to us and us to them," Springbok CEO Jennifer Todd stated to the public. "Our first five years have produced an amazing run of success. Now, with Participant gone and us taking up the slack, we plan to give more of ourselves and our efforts to the venture. Amblin Partners is here to stay, and we are going to make sure of it, especially as we branch out into streaming projects, both for Universal and even to fulfill the Disney pact."

Alibaba Pictures, eOne and Reliance Entertainment will all continue as equity holders, with Alibaba releasing Amblin films in China; eOne releasing them in the UK, Spain, Australia, New Zealand and Benelux; and Reliance releasing movies in India.

The new deal calls for multiple Amblin films to be marketed and distributed theatrically via Universal Pictures and its indie arm Focus Features each year, while also providing Amblin with new opportunities to manufacture films designed to appear on the Blockbuster Entertainment streaming platform. NBCUniversal has also agreed to reinvest in the company, providing fresh capital to fund new production and development. NBCUniversal has an equity stake in Amblin. Animated projects will now also be considered part of the Amblin film slate as well. The animation and streaming clauses also now expand to fulfilling the end of the DreamWorks/Disney pact, which calls for DreamWorks films to be released by Disney's Touchstone Pictures division.

“Universal is simply the best in the business, and we are beyond fortunate to have Donna Langley and her team supporting our films,” Jeff Small, Amblin Partners CEO, commented. “In addition, the evolution of our partnership provides flexibility for us to continue supplying the fast-growing streaming marketplace on an even greater scale, which will no doubt be a key growth driver for Amblin Partners in both film and TV in the years ahead.”

Amblin’s recent releases with Universal include winning _Green Book_ and _1917_ , as well as _Cats_ and the upcoming _Jurassic World: Dominion_.

“Steven Spielberg and Amblin Partners have delivered award-winning critical and commercial hits that stand the test of time amongst films in the Universal canon,” Donna Langley, chairman of Universal Filmed Entertainment Group, said. “We’re proud to continue our partnership and reinvest in the future of Amblin Partners.”

Amblin has previously made streaming series such as the upcoming reboot of _Animaniacs_ alongside Springbok's Denver And Delilah Animation division, but they have not moved as aggressively into the space when it comes to movies. Indeed, Spielberg has been critical of some of these projects, suggesting they should not be eligible for Oscars. The coronavirus pandemic has left rippling effects on the the movie business, however; with the standard for the theatrical window lowered and more leeway regarding streaming projects, including the potential for them to be played in theaters.

Amblin also said it had closed a syndicated revolving credit facility led by J.P. Morgan and Comerica.

* * *

"Springbok Lands First-Look TV Deal With HBO, HBO-Branded Content for Blockbuster Entertainment," by Will Thorne, _Variety_ , December 1, 2020

Springbok Productions is pushing further into the TV space.

The company founded by Kurt Cobain and Charlize Theron has inked a two-year first-look deal with HBO and HBO-branded content on Blockbuster Entertainment, _Variety_ has confirmed.

Under the deal, the company will develop TV projects for both the premium cabler and the streamer, looking to add to its TV slate.

Andrew Haas, who recently joined the company, will oversee Springbok’s television slate. The company was previously under a first-look at Universal Content Productions, the series of which are only now coming out.

CEO Jennifer Todd managers the outfit, alongside Cobain, Theron, a variety of skilled executives, and producing partners Beth Kono and AJ Dix. Springbok’s past feature credits include _Monster_ , for which Theron won an Oscar, the Jason Reitman-directed films _Young Adult_ and _Tully_ , the Rosamund Pike-led drama _A Private War_ , the Paul Greengrass-directed _Bohemian Rhapsody_ , and Universal and Focus Features’ _Atomic Blonde_. Springbok's TV slate includes the likes of _Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Avatar: The Last Airbender, Code Lyoko, Girlboss, Mindhunter, The Alienist, The Looming Tower_ and others.

Back in 2017, _Variety_ spoke with Theron about making the move into producing because she wanted her voice heard on behind-the-scenes decisions.

“I really think I became a producer because I love the nuance of storytelling, and even if I hadn't met Kurt, I would have have done it anyways,” Theron said.

Springbok is represented by WME; Hansen, Jacobson, Teller, Hoberman, Newman, Warren, Richman, Rush, Kaller & Gellman, LLP and The Lede Company.

_The Hollywood Reporter_ first broke the deal news.

_A bigger version of this entire story can now be found at FictionPress: https://www.fictionpress.com/s/3352454/1/Cobain-Continues-Redux-Press-Clippings_


	7. Author's Note

This version of the story is now closed. A bigger version of this entire story can now be found at FictionPress: https://www.fictionpress.com/s/3352454/1/Cobain-Continues-Redux-Press-Clippings


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